The One Who Got Away
by C.K Larkins
Summary: Dwight Fairfield isn't the bravest, the strongest, nor the smartest. Yet his friends depend on him to lead them through the nightmare. In this realm lurks horrible monsters and murderers thirty for blood. The realm is ever shifting and only serves the illusion of escape. But something is seeking to get in and it might be their only way out. (M for blood, violence, some language)
1. Chapter 1- An Escape

Dwight pressed himself against the cold stone. His body was trembling. Every nerve in his body told him to run, to run away and hide until it all goes away. He buried his face in his hands. He can't do that. He knows he can't do that. He has to be brave. For once in his life he must be brave, not just for himself but for everyone else. He took slow, deliberate breaths. _You've done this before._ He told himself. He gathered what little courage he had and peeked his head around the corner.

The mad beast his chainsaw and screamed at the sky, screeching what could be loosely interpreted as a song. The horrid sound uttered from the man's mangled lips sent shivers down Dwight's spine. The saw dripping with yet another fresh coat of crimson; today was a bloody harvest. Dwight could make out a bloody figure lying face down in wilting grass and wondered which friend fell victim to the saw. Any distinguishing feature was masked in the blood and mud.

When the raving creature finished it picked up the still body by its belt and threw it over its shoulder. Blood and gore running down its back like droplets of rain. Dwight caught a better look at the victim. It was unmistakable. The green jacket, the scruffy black hair already soaked red: It was Jake.

Dwight watched helplessly as the twisted creature carried Jake into the cornfield and being devoured in the fog. An explosion of light appeared from the other direction. Dwight turned to the beacon of light, the beacon of hope. One of the generators has been fixed. The roar of the saw came shortly after. The mad monster's wailing could be heard echoing amidst the crops.

Without thinking Dwight darted from his hiding spot and made a beeline for his fallen friend. That's right. He encouraged himself. Don't think about it. If you think about it, you'll give up. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Just do it!  
Dwight saw Jake's head raised above the corn, a hook protruding him his shoulder and hanged him from a tall, rusty post. Dwight rushed to his friend's side. He looked around to be sure that the killer wasn't waiting for an ambush. No, this one wasn't subtle. He would hear him coming a mile away.

Seizing his chance, Dwight clamped onto Jake's sides and pulled him off the rusty hook. Jake fell like a sack of rocks. A cloud of dirt puffed up from the ground where he landed. Dwight tended to his wounds.

"Get up. Come on, we have keep going!" Dwight pleaded. Something was wrong. Jake was clearly breathing. His back rising and falling with the signs of life, but Jake remained on the ground just lying there. Dwight shook him again.

"Jake, get up! He'll come back any minute. Get up!"

Jake let out a cough and a wheeze. "There's not point. We can't escape."

Dwight heard the revving of a chainsaw in the distance and the scream of the next victim. He grabbed Jake by his arm and propped him to his feet with his shoulder.

"You know we can't think that. We must keep going. We're still here." Dwight spotted the lights of a generator towering over the corn. He walked over to it, careful to keep him and his friend hidden among the crops. He set Jake down by the broken generator. "Now get to work. We have to work together if we're going to make it."

Dwight already set to work on fixing the generator. He'd done it so many times that he isn't fazed by the tangled mess of exposed wires nor the strange and obtuse objects lodged in the machinery. He knew the circuits by heart. You learn that early on. It's all memory and practice. Practice, practice and practice and you might make it out alive by sheer habit.

Jake watched Dwight and did the same. His eyes held a dull, dead expression to them, yet his arms toiled away on autopilot like a puppet on a string. Dwight remembered being in a similar state back home. Yes, think of home. Home brings hope.

Dwight remembered long days at work when his shift would stretch from dawn till dusk. He remembers his mind drifting to better places during slow days at school. Neither contain happy memories, but it was better than here. Anything is better than here.

The machinery hummed as it slowly came alive. The pistons began rising and falling as if taking breath. The lights above flickered and flashed as wires were crossed and the bolts tightened.

Jake shielded his face as sparks erupted from the engine. They bounced harmlessly off his arms and faded out as they fluttered to the ground. The chainsaw roared in the distance. The creature's wailing's getting louder and louder. The last piston was slowly moving. The generator could be completed.

Dwight's heart pounded like a war drum. A sheet of sweat dripped from his fingertips. Exposed wires coursing with electricity burned his fingertips when he tried to grab them. The wailing grew louder and louder. He knew what was coming, he'd felt it before. He remembers the teeth of the saw ripping through his back. The pain, the fear and the stench of blood.

Dwight lost his nerve. All that liquid courage drained away. He dove into the corn, out of sight of any who would do him harm. He crouched low to the ground as the chainsaw grew louder and louder. He pressed himself again the dirt. _That's right pretend to be a previous victim. Even if he sees you, he might think your dead. _He covered his head, closed his eyes and prayed that he wouldn't be found. The monster raced past him. Dwight hesitated before taking a sigh of relief. He's fine. He's safe. All that relief vanished when he heard Jake's scream.

Dwight peered through the endless sea of corn and witnessed a familiar sight. Jake, on the ground covered in blood with the hillbilly standing over him, moaning in groaning haunting, gargling noises. It picked up Dwight's friend and carried him to the hook that once hung him. Jake didn't even struggle. He accepted his fate. The hook pierced his chest. Reality warped and twisted around the hook. Long, black spider legs weaved themselves into being, slowly crawling up the post. Twitching and scratching, one large leg swung down into Jake's chest. He caught it purely on instinct and suddenly that spark in his eyes returned: A terrifying will to live.

Guilt festered, leaving a heavy stone in Dwight's heart. This was all his fault. He should have warned Jake, tried to hide him. A hundred different scenarios ran though his head all of which where Dwight would save Jake from his fate at some cost or another.

The mad monster was barely a man and more of a starving animal. A steady dream of drool flowed from its gaping maw, salivating at the kill. It revved its saw again and vanished in the corn. Dwight rushed to unhook his friend when he once again heard the constant roar of the saw. The hillbilly charged headfirst to them. Dwight jumped behind the hook and the killer lodged his chainsaw into Jake's leg, severing it completely. Jake barely made a sound as his stump was made into a fountain of blood. Dwight felt the immense guilt crawling up his back.

The monster returned to its senses and its hungry stare was purely on Dwight. Dwight dashed through the corn as the monster gave chase. Even with its limp leg the killer was catching up as if the its invisible master was lashing at its back. Dwight looked anywhere for cover. He saw his salvation in a thrown together shack plopped right down in the center of the field. He ran for it, he ran as fast as he legs could carry him. Meg would be ashamed on his form. He's not breathing with every step like she taught him. An athlete, Dwight is not; that much is certain.

Dwight dove through the window as the hillybilly's saw dug into the rotting wood works. For a brief moment his view was obscured by the shower of splinters that flew into his face. Dwight stumbled back and fell down some stairs that waited to reveal themselves. He tumbled down each step, the jagged corners digging into back and sides. He shielded his head with his hands on the way down.

At last he landed at the bottom of the basement and his heart sank. Before him was a shrine: four conjoined hooks sprung from the blood-soaked ground. Shafts of light shined through the cracks in the walls and splintered wood. Small, budding veins were slowly crawling from the cracks. Feasting on the blood and stench of countless sacrifices. Dwight gripped the sharp pain in his chest. The memories still fresh in his mind.

His horror cut short by the sound of heavy footsteps. Dwight looked for a hiding spot. Nowhere to hide accept a nearby locker. He slowly crawled inside to not make any noise right before the monster entered the basement. It was cramp, and that horrible odor hung in the air. Dwight couldn't tell if the sound of his heart echoed off the walls or if it was his imagination. Dwight held his breath and hoped beyond hope that the creature wouldn't look there. It turned its crooked head around, its neck making ungodly snapping sounds as it forced it to move. It turned its nose to the ceiling and started sniffing the air like a dog.

He surveyed the scene, checking every corner. It took every ounce of control Dwight had to keep his body from shaking. The twisted monster walked over to the stairs, fuming that he lost his pray. Dwight watched as he slowly went up the steps, the trail of running wearing down the murderer. Dwight smiled. It was leaving. He made it. He heard the alarm of the last generator being powered. By the time he makes it to the exit gate it will be open. A blessed escape will be his. Dwight took a sigh of relief and the monster stopped dead in his tracks.

Dwight clasped his hands over his mouth, but it was too late! The monster tore open the locker and gripped its filthy hand around Dwight's neck. Its gore coated fingers crushing his windpipe. The smell of its rotten breath burned Dwight's nostrils. The hillbilly tore Dwight from his hiding spot and threw him on the quad hook. Before he could react to the hook in his chest, the spider's tendrils wrapped themselves around the rusty post. Dwight cried out in agony not just from the pain, but because he knew that escape had eluded him yet again.

It's always the same. The feeling of fear, the cold steel in his chest, the colder touch of the Entity tearing a part of him out. Tearing out a part you can never recover like an old wound being reopened again and again until there's nothing left but a hollow husk, an empty vessel devoid of hope. To be ripped away and violated in by the unfathomable. The feeling never leaves you. The void in left behind can never be filled. Darkness surrounded him. The cold grip of death graced his hand before he woke up to the crackling of the campfire.

He failed again. Dwight looked at the sullen, sunken faces of his friends. They looked to him for comfort, for guidance. He is their leader and he failed them again.

* * *

Dwight took a seat by the campfire, mindlessly staring into the burning flame. Sitting beside him were people just like him: trapped in an unexplainable situation in a strange, alien place. A long time ago it was just the four of them: Meg, Claudette, Jake, and himself, but over time that number has grown and shows no signs of stopping. Despite this, they all still look to him for leadership: the pathetic dork with broken glasses.

Meg was sitting next to him, drenched in sweat. She was still catching her breath from the trail before. She managed to escape by outrunning the killer and her clothes showed it. Worn running shoes that once were clean and bright now sullied by dirt and worn down by use. How they still have traction was beyond Dwight, maybe it was a 'gift' from their eldritch warden.

Jake and Claudette were on the other side of the campfire. Both shared the terrible trembling that comes after being sacrificed. Dwight understood. Nothing could feel that empty void in your being once it's gone. Nothing at all. Claudette comforted Jake who had his face buried in his knees. Guilt racked every fiber of Dwight's being. A dark voice whispered in the back of his mind "It's all your fault, coward."

Dwight could name people more suited for the position off the top of head. Bill was in the military, Adam was a college professor, hell Tapp worked in law enforcement. Anyone of them would be more qualified then himself. Why would they choose him over all others? Why would they look for him for guidance in these endless trials? What'd he ever accomplishes that made him stand out among the rest?

Reading the doubt on his face, Bill spoke up. Puffs of smoke hung on his words as his cigarette dangled between his lips.

"Like it or not son, you're leading the front-lines." The old man, still wearing his aged military beret scoots over to Dwight's side and pats him on the back. "Every unit has a leader and without that, the unit doesn't last long. I know what you're going through kid. I know what it's like to be an unlikely source of leadership." Bill's eyes went dark, reminiscing of treacherous times. He never talked about it much, only hints and the odd slip of the tongue, but everyone knew that he lost a lot. "And the sacrifices that come with it. Shape up, kiddo. We ain't FUBAR just yet."

Dwight gave a brave face. There must be hope in this hell, even if it isn't real. That's another thing you learn quickly: Even false hope has a purpose. Bill smiles back. His eyes regaining a bit of their sparkle.

"Good talk." He returns to his previous seat and took another puff of his cigarette. "What's the plan chief?"

Dwight looked down and twiddled his thumbs. His thoughts drifted to the corn. Hiding in plain sight while the killer was distracted. Stealth was used but wasn't as reliable as running. You know when you're being chased, you know where to run and how to loop the killer around until the exit is available. Hiding is something else. You never know when you're hiding spot has been exposed or not until it's too late. Sometimes you can't even hide. The creatures of the fog are unpredictable, wild and savage. They hold strange and otherworldly powers. You can't outrun them all.

"We can't outrun them all." Dwight echoed his own thoughts. "We need to get better at hiding. Lockers, tall grass, trees, rubble, anything and everything that can be used as cover." The survivors all nodded their head in agreement. "And we need to teach each other as much as we can. Meg, whatever routine you have for running, go for it and have everyone run it." Meg cracked a smile.

"I'll teach you what I can if you can keep up!" Her competitive spirit burning brighter than the campfire.

"That's the spirit! Claudette," Dwight turned to Claudette "do you have anything that can help us heal each other faster? Like in a pinch?"

Claudette's head darted up from Jake. Her glasses cracked and broken much like Dwight's. Her dreadlocks disheveled and messy. Her hands wrapped around Jake and were still shaking. Her eyes darting in every which direction. Hyper vigilant would be an understatement.

"What? Huh? What do you mean?" Her face was twitching, wracked with stress. She held onto Jake like a security blanket. Words flew from her mouth faster than Dwight could catch them.

"You're the smartest out of all of us. Is there anything that you know that we can help us heal faster. A plant we can pick or something we can do with the medical kits to make them last longer?"

Claudette reached behind her back and pulled out a small, dirty wooden box stuffed to the prime with plants and herbs. She flicked the latch and opened the box, clumps of dirt flew all around. Inside were stuffed plants of weird shapes and colors. Dwight had seen Claudette spend hours studying their strange, otherworldly properties. She pointed her finger at the flowery buds pushed to the side.

"These won't help seal the wound, but it will numb the pain." She dragged her finger to the other side of the box. "These will help stop the blood flow but will burn through medical kits faster." Dwight couldn't tell the difference between a lifesaving herb and a simple leaf. Still, he smiled and nodded.

"And Jake-" He turned to Jake. His eyes were dark. The color drained from his face. He dazed in and out of consciousness, swing from awake to sleep like a bipolar pendulum. "Jake!" Dwight nudged Jake's shoulder. "Stay with just Jake."

"What? Huh?" Jake said. His voice low and quiet.

"When you were hurt you didn't make a sound. How'd you do it?"

"What? Oh, that's easy. You just have to focus on something else. A happy thought, not being murdered. That stuff. It's all in the mind."

"Okay, can you teach it to everyone else."

Jake nodded. "Of course."

"Good and Jake, stay with us man. We have to survive for each other." Dwight held out his hand and Jake took it in a firm grip. Color returned to his face, a fire reignited behind his eyes. Hope was faded but not gone. They nodded their heads in newfound vigor and returned to their seats.

Both resumed to staring woefully into the fire. Dwight wiped the thin crust off his eyes. What he wouldn't give for a good night's rest. He can't remember the last time he's slept for that matter.

"What's the first thing you're going to do when we get out?" Dwight blurred out. Confused looks darted in his direction. Everyone has told their story at least once. In a place like this, there can be no secrets between friends. Secrets do nothing but gnaw at the bonds of trust and trust was one of the few things this nightmare can't butcher.

Jake tore his gaze from the flame. He brushed his fingers through the beard growing on his face. He looked back down with a heavy gaze. Regret personified on his face.

"I'd talk to my dad." He finally said. "Say I'm sorry for leaving. Tell him that I forgive him. He only wanted the best for me and I threw it all in his face." Jake wiped his watery eyes.

Meg was the next to speak. Tears were already welling up in her eyes with the thought of home. "Check on my mom. Make sure she's okay and taken care of anything happens to me again. Then maybe go back to trying to be a world class runner. Always wanted to run with the big names."

Dwight put his hand on Meg's lap. "Hey, nothing will happen to us when we get out. I mean, after all we've been through there'll be nothing we can't handle." The kindhearted statement did little to comfort her. Tears streamed down Meg's face. She got up from her seat by the campfire.

"I need a jog." She ran off into the woods. A moment later she returned from the opposite side and kept running. If Dwight didn't know better, he'd assume she ran around the whole world. But he knew better. This "world" if you can call it that loved to play tricks on you, to confuse and turn you around until you're at its mercy.

"I'd go back to my old chatrooms. I bet a lot of those guys still need help with their biology homework." Claudette chuckled. "Some of those guys wouldn't know aloe from a common weed." Her glasses sloped down her nose, causing her to push her glasses back up in place. "You know what? When we get out, I want us to all hang out!" Cheers rang from the crowd around the fire.

"Yea! We can all go to a dance club! I know a good spot!" Meg chimed.

"Naw, the firing range is where you want to go to have a good time!" Bill retorted.

"I don't want to be anywhere near you with a gun, old man!"

"I'll show you what an old man can really do! Next round, I knock the next crazy bastard's lights out! Watch me! I fought worse hand to hand!"

Dwight smiled. Good to know she was still capable of jokes after all this time. Say what you will about humanity, it is nothing if not resilient.

"What about you Dwight? What will you do when you return home?"

Home. A word that doesn't bring happy memories. He remembers the days spent at the pizza joint. The smell of dough and melting cheese kissing the inside of his nostrils after every delivery. The bright red face of his angry manager screaming at some poor, underpaid worker. The smallest mistake being punished with overblown severity. Nothing as bad as their current situation, but unpleasant nonetheless.

"Just… just look at the sun again. It's been forever since we've seen daylight, you know?" That got a few chuckles from the crowd. Dwight's cheeks ran red. He didn't mean for it to sound like a joke. The rest that weren't laughing were staring mournfully into the campfire. Daylight, real honest to god sunlight didn't seem real anymore. Just a dream that they've long since woken up from.

* * *

A snowflake fluttered through the trees and into Dwight's hand. It melted into a tiny droplet and sat in his palm. Snow… Another thing he never knew he would miss. Except this snow wasn't real, it wasn't cold. Just another prop in the Entity's game.

Through the fog he could make out a cabin of some sort. It resembled the same dilapidated ruins he's used to running through. The miss matched boards of new and aged wood were stacked on top of each other in strange and obtuse ways. A cold wind moaned throughout the lodge.

Inside didn't fare much better. Thrown together furniture and broken chunks of what might have been the ceiling lay scattered haphazardly around a warm fire in the center of the room. Made Dwight's old bedroom look good. Dwight didn't pay much attention to the decor. What he was looking for was wedged between the rubble: A generator.

Dwight surveyed his surroundings, making sure he was alone. No shimmers in the air, no masked men hiding behind bushes, nor chainsaw wielding maniacs to tear into his back, and no friends to watch his back. No time to lose. Dwight knelt by the generator and got to work.

It was quiet, too quiet. Normally by now there would a scream either by a killer let loose or a fellow survivor in danger. Dwight kept one eye on the mangled mess of wires and the other over his shoulder. His palms began to sweat, his hands trembled in anticipation.

The silence was deafening. Dwight looked around for the smallest sign. Startled crows, footsteps in the snow, something to tell him something was lurking in the fog. His breath caught in his throat. He looked up to the pine towering high above him reaching into the impenetrable fog. Hanging above him was a ski lift dangling over him. The rusty metal screeching with every swing.

Dwight squinted his eyes but couldn't see past the dense blanket of fog. Every passing breeze graced Dwight's shoulder, every snapping twig rang in his ear. BOOM! The generator exploded in a display fire and sparks. Dwight cursed under his breath. He checked his hands. Minor burns to on top of the newly healed skin. Another scar to add to the collection.

"Hey, you there!" Dwight jumped out of his skin, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. He turned around, back against the broken generator. Before him stood a figure in wrapped in a dark, nondescript jacket. The voice brimming with youthful rebellion and underlining hostility. His face was covered in dirt and grim, his bandaged fingered caked in what Dwight hoped was mud. One of the stranger's hand was hidden behind his back.

The snarling teenager pressed his lips together and narrowed his dagger point eyes at Dwight. "Where the hell am I?" He demanded.

Dwight shrugged. "I couldn't tell you if I knew." The teen griped his fists and pushed Dwight against the engine.

"You best tell me where I am before I get mad! I don't like to repeat myself! Where. The hell. Am I?" Dwight shielded his face and cowered in the corner.

"I don't know! I don't know! But if you want to get out, we have to fix the generators!" Dwight pointed to the generator clinging to life. Only a pair of pistons were moving at all, the rest were still as stone.

"And how does that help us?" The teenager yelled, tightening his grip on Dwight's shirt. His nails, sharp as talons digging into his skin.

"It powers an exit gate we can use to escape." Dwight said swiftly. He looked along the walkway above them. He could have sworn he heard something. A humming song? A haunting lullaby? No, no it was just the wind, right?

The teen flashed a twisted smile and released Dwight from his grip.

"Leave? Why would we leave?" the teenager's right arm is twitching in anticipation. He stared at Dwight with an instinctual, almost wild hunger.

"We're endanger! There's a killer on the loose!" Dwight returned to his repairing. "And keep your voice down or the killer might find us! Trust me, if they catch you, you'll wish you were dead."

"So, this is what we do…" The teen muttered to himself.

"We have to work together. I'm Dwight by the way. You?" The teen turned around, revealing a masked grimace carved with a crooked smile.

The masked teen lunged at him with his knife. Dwight dashed to the side, the blade plunging into the mangled mess of wires of the generator. The masked teen let go of his blade and swung his fist, back handing Dwight square in the jaw. Dwight tasted blood on his tongue: his blood.

Dwight sprinted out of the building and into the snow. He ran as fast as his legs could carry him. The fog thickened. Dwight couldn't see two feet in front of him. He heard heavy panting behind him, then the killer tackled him from behind. The masked teen pounded his fists to Dwight's back and cursing with every punch. The edgy teenager gripped Dwight's neck and squeezed. His vision darkened, and the world grew cold. His lungs begging for air, gasping like a dying fish.

Dwight clawed at the mask, bloody fingerprints painted on the wooden face.

"Please… don't…." Dwight pledged.

"Hey!" A beam of light shined on the mask. The killer shielded his eyes from the blinding light. Meg standing holding a flashlight with both hands. "Run, Dwight, run!"

Dwight squirmed beneath the killer until he was free from his grasp. He ran so fast, ripping up the dirt as he went. The former track star running by his side.

"Remember what I taught you! Control your breathing. Pace yourself!"

"Got it! Thanks for the save back there!" Meg gave Dwight a cocky smiled.

"Like you said: You have to survive so that we survive!" Meg turned her head back. "Don't look back, but he's right behind us."

Dwight did look back and instantly regretted it. The masked killer was right behind them. Squeezing his knife and swinging wildly at the air.

"Keep running! If we split up, one of us can work on the gens!" Dwight ordered.

"Ay, ay captain!" Dwight took a hard left and Meg took to the right.

Dwight saw the lodge through the fog. A pillar of smoke rose from its heart. Dwight rushed to the generator he was working on. The ever-sneaky Claudette appeared before his very eyes.

"Dwight, I know how the killer is! It looks like some hot topic wannabe freak with a mask!"

"I just had a run in with him. Meg should be giving him the slip or at least loop him around for a few more minutes."

"Then we don't have much time. What's his gimmick?"

"Didn't stick around to find out. Now come on! We got to get this done!"

Dwight and Claudette began cutting, slicing the wires crammed into the engine. Dwight caught a loose gear covered in grease and lodged it back into place with its spinning brethren. After a few more sparks and crossing a wire, the generator sprung to life releasing a floodgate of light.

"Good job, Claudette." Dwight cheered._ That's right keep encouraging them. Tell them they're doing a good job. Do anything and say everything to keep them motivated. The moment they lose hope; it's all over._

The ground quaked. Dwight and Claudette lost their balance as the world shook. Furniture thrown around, chunks of rotting wood came crashing down.

"Get out! The ceiling's coming down!" Dwight scrambled off the floor and ran to the nearest exit. Claudette followed closely behind him.

What remained of the already damaged roof collapsed the lodge's lobby and crushed the generator. The lights flickered then returned to darkness.

"No, that's cheating! We fixed it fair and square!" Claudette said before the ground began to shake again.

The trees tore themselves from their foundation, throwing mountains of dirt up in the air. The ski lift creaked and moaned before collapsing into a pile of scrap. Dwight curled up in a ball, shielding his head from incoming debris.

"Whatever is happening, make it stop!" He cried out.

To spite him, the world shook harder. Dwight struggled to keep himself anchored to one spot. He dug his fingers deep into the dirt. The world ripping itself apart, cracks bursting with light erupted from the ground.

Out of nowhere, Dwight felt a knife worm between his rib and the smiling grimace of that pale white mask. He was barking like a mad dog, asking questions of how and why. Dwight could only hear his heart beating in his head. The wound cut deep. The air tasted like blood and he found it harder and harder to draw breath. He was drowning in his own blood.

The tree branches bend and contorted to long, shadow spider limbs. They swatted at the air, weaving reality back together. Bright, yellow strings swiftly stitched the glowing cracks shut. That's when Dwight heard a sound that caressed his ears with ceremonious song. The cracks brimming with light were singing. No, playing music, music on a radio. He didn't recognize the song, but he knew it was from a radio. The signal static frosted over the upbeat tunes and the cheesy lyrics.

Dwight saw the light shimmer through the slit in the world, a crack, a peek behind the curtain. He crawled to it. He could barely hear Claudette crying out as the killer fell upon her. Her muffled screams drowned out by the siren song. It didn't matter where it took him. Home or the campfire. Anything is better than this hell. Dwight held in his guts, digging into the soil with his free hand. The world trembled, and the crack slowly began to close. Long spider legs weaving a thick web over the portal.

Dwight dragged his mangled body closer. The crack was closing, the Entity weaving it close to prevent escape. That means it must lead somewhere, right? Somewhere outside, somewhere safe. Dwight reached the portal and without thinking threw himself into the void of light.

"No! Get back here!" He heard the killer scream.

"Dwight!" Was that Claudette or Meg? Someone shouted his name before he was taken by the blinding light.

Dwight fell in the bright abyss. He didn't know where he was going, and he didn't care. At least his last moments would be free. Before he knew it, Dwight landed with a thud in a small space lined completely in leather. A veil of darkness shrouded his vision. He felt around to get a sense of where he was. He felt cold metal all around him, closing in on him like a casket.

Dwight scrunched up his knees. Blood from his wound staining the leather and forming a puddle beneath him. The trunk of the car was just his size. He pounded at the wall and kicked at the ceiling.

"Help! Help me!" He screamed.

Dwight kicked the ceiling until the hood of the trunk popped open. A brief gust of cold air blew into Dwight's face. Outside, towering stacks of warn cars pilled around him. With an all too familiar green hue painting the sky. Swarms of moths

"No. No! I'm still here! No!" Dwight cursed himself, tears welling in his eyes. "I'm still here." He muttered. "I'm still here…" He groveled to the ground, wrapping his hands around his still bleeding wound. Hope faded from his mind. The scrapyard another playground for the Entity's game. Dwight was sure that it was over. He was certain that any moment another twisted creature of the fog would strike him down and drag him away. He fell to his knees, ready to accept his fate, then he saw the impossible.

The moon set over the horizon and to the east shined the first rays of sunshine Dwight has seen in years. He didn't believe it. He always dreamed of seeing the sun again. It was brighter than he remembered. His eyes burned but he didn't want to look away. Precious golden light warmed his skin. The sounds of birds chirping were a sweet, sobering symphony. Tears streamed freely down his face, forming puddles in the dried dirt.

The sun rose over the horizon. The dark sky turned bright baby blue. The scene was worthy of a painting to be hung and savored for all to see. His fear washed away, replaced with blossoming hope. He made it. He escaped. The song that guided him to freedom gently echoing in the wind.

"Hey kid!" A gruff old man yelled from his small box office parked at the entrance of the scrapyard. A fence bordered around the yard. "What they hell are you doing? Get the hell off my property or I'm calling the police!" Dwight ran to the old man, almost in shock of seeing a new human face. His small office priming with old, discarded magazines, an overflowing ash tray and the blaring radio tucked away on the windowsill.

"Holy hell kid, what blender did you walk into?" The old man pointed to Dwight's blood-soaked clothes. "Holy shit, you're bleeding!"

Dwight raised his crimson coated hand. He's been cut, stabbed, bitten and choked so many times that he barely noticed.

"I'm fine. Where am I? What year is it?"

"Kid, you need a hospital!"

Dwight's thoughts got fuzzy, scattered, and unfocused. He began coughing warm blood in his hands. Struggling to give air to his blood-filled lungs.

"No… No I'm fine… Whe- where am I?" He leaned up again the gate. His legs turned to jelly. Dwight stumbled onto the rusty gate, conciseness slipping away from him. The last thing he heard was: "You're in the town of Weeks kid."


	2. Chapter 2- Flatline

Dwight woke up to the steady beat of the heartbeat monitor. The buzzing of the florescent lights filled his ears and gave him a nauseating headache. The obnoxiously bright light was hanging right over head and made its mission to burn a hole directly into Dwight's eyes. He looked around, startled. He was use to waking up in strange places and that's what made him nervous.

Dwight struggled to get his head together. He looked down to find that he was tucked in a clean white bed. A crowd of white lab coats and blue scrubs. Medical devices stacked up to him on both sides. A shallow IV drip hooked directly to a vain in his arm giving him god knows what. Everything was so clean, so bright. Dwight shielded his eyes. The room was blurry.

He pieced together the series of events that brought him here like a scattered jigsaw puzzle. There was the snow, the generator covered in broken boards and splintered wood, the sharp toothed man, cracks in the ground, a void of light and… and…

Dwight's eyes widened with a mixture of fear and bewilderment. He got out. The words bouncing around his head were made of rubber. The believably of the whole thing was doubtful at best. The very concept slipping through his grasp on reality. There's no way he did that. There's no way he escaped, right?

For so long he'd been running around in that otherworldly prison. He and countless others spent every waking moment studying, theorizing, searching and dreaming of a way to escape -not just back to the campfire, but a real escape- and now here he was smothered in bright white lights and smelling like a janitor's mop bucket. Whatever they used to clean the wound burned Dwight's nostrils like some fiendish prankster decided to set fire to the tip of his nose hair.

He put a hand to rub the blur from his eyes when he realized something was missing: his glasses.

Dwight looked up and down, greeted only by a nondescript blur and every present glimmer of polished floor tile. The heartbeat monitor's once steady beat picking up the pace. He can't see, he can't prepare. Countless times have his eyes saved his life. One of the vital senses that kept him alive when the very world around him was so devilishly designed to end him. Without his glasses he would have been dead meat; and now they're gone. The machine beeped faster and faster. Dwight griped his chest, so his heart didn't fly out of it. His glasses, where were his glasses?

Dwight reached past the little plastic fence built into the side of the bed and to what might be a shelf or a little table. Everything being either paper white or clear plastic didn't help Dwight's already impaired vision. He felt around the small glass jars and even smaller plastic tubing that some genius thought was perfect to keep next to the half blind patient having a panic attack. He felt the cold glass against his fingertips followed by the sound of glass splitting and shattering into tiny little pieces on the floor, scattering like snowflakes fresh from the storm.

"Sir? Sir are you okay?" The voice was warm wrapped with a compassion. The woman in white appeared at Dwight's bedside, sweeping up the broken glass while looking over the machines dug into him.

Dwight gripped the sheets between his fingers. Nervous sweat ran down his temples.

"Sir?"

The nurse wasn't the same nurse he knew. She didn't float a couple inches off the ground nor did she have that trademark bag suffocating what little air she had left. Even without his glasses Dwight could see that this nurse was very much alive and not dangled between life and death like a broken yo-yo. No, this was just the run of the mill ordinary nurse or at least Dwight hoped it was.

"Sir!"

There was always the slight chance that she was a shapeshifter. It wouldn't be the strangest thing he encountered. Trying to lure him into a false sense of security then run him through with a rusty blade. Then how would that explain everyone else. Illusions? A mirage caused by blood lost? Claudette might have said something about that a while ago. Claudett-

"Sir! Did you need something?" The woman was basically shouting on Dwight, pulling him out of his tangled thoughts and back to reality. He stared blankly at her and blinked.

"My umm…" Dwight found his words weak. The general roar of the hospital staff drowned out any thoughts he could muster. A wave of exhaustion washed over him. "My.. my glasses… Wher-"

"There right here, sir." The woman reached to the table by the bed and pulled out Dwight's glasses. Even without them, Dwight could see the use and abuse they've taken in the trials. One of the lenses was completely cracked that looked like an insidious spider spun its web inside the glass. The bridge between the two lens is bent, held together by a dirty bandage and a sticky twig. Dwight tried raised his arm to grab them and found that they felt heavy as lead. He only managed to raise his arm a few inches off the bed sheets with what little strength he had left.

"Allow me, sir." The woman slid the broken glasses on Dwight's bruised face. She tried to adjust the broken lens to fit over his eye but gave up when it was clearly futile. "You need to be more careful. You could have hurt yourself on the glass."

With his vision somewhat returned to him, Dwight scanned the room. No cracks in the ceiling, paint peeling off the walls or the haunting song of crows in the distance. Did he really escape, finally?

"Um… sorry about that. I just needed my glasses."

The nurse smiled at him. Her smile was white and bright, like freshly polished pearls. They were so shiny and bright that Dwight could see his dim reflection in them.

"I understand, sir. It looks like you've been through a lot, but don't worry. You'll receive the best treatments Week's has to offer." She gently slipped her fingers beneath Dwight's arm and held them in the light.

Dwight never bothered counting the scars. After awhile you stop noticing them and just accept the reality that it was a part you. Another small, distinct feature that was grievously given to you by some twisted, blood thirsty monster. Because of this he never truly took the time to realize how many he had obtained through his time in the fog.

If asked, Dwight wouldn't be able to recall where he got half of scars that covered nearly every inch of his arm like a sleeve. Lines both smooth and sharp melded and mixed with cuts that were crude and twisted. He noticed a few. There was one cut at the palm of his hand that he remembers being the first. You never forget your first. Your first love: Carly from second grade. Your first day of school: Quite and awkward. Your first scar: Masked man with metal hooks plunged into his flesh, snuck up on you while your head was still spinning, wondering where the hell you were. If he thought about it, he could still feel the blade cutting through the skin as if it happened just moments before.

A few he could tell just by the size and shape of the cut. That ever familiar chainsaw teeth left their mark. Dwight took a moment to recall which chainsaw manic gave him the mark that ran to his wrist to his elbow, before he decided that they were practically the same and that it didn't matter. He could make out the rough shape of claws that took a chunk of flesh out right below his wrist that never grew back even after the trial. Dwight never understood that. Maybe _It_ decided that the feral swamp thing that took it deserved to keep it or it could be a reminder that no matter how much he lost, _It_ could always take more.

There were other noticeable exceptions: Some bits of glass embedded snug in his skin, a few bits of bones that wasn't his, and one or two metal splinters for good measure. He'd been through it all. His friends dragging him through every step along the way and now they were gone, and he was here. Alone.

He didn't have time to ponder however. Out of the corner of his eye he watched the nurse switch the empty IV bag with a fresh one. Dwight couldn't find the strength to protest. His eyelids were heavy curtains begging to be let down. He could feel the dark bags hang under his eyes gain another fold the longer he remained awake.

"You need your rest, sir. The doctor will come by and ask for your medical history. Try and contact your family so they can come see you."

His mind grew numb. _Family._ He clung to the word like a rat on a sinking ship. At first, he only thought of _them_. His friends he fought so hard to protect. They're bright faces all around the campfire as they siked each other up for the next trial. Then it got hazy. The mysterious medicine had a direct line to his bloodstream. He saw other faces, blurry and half remembered.

"My.. family…" He muttered.

Dwight didn't want to go to sleep. The last time he remembers sleeping was right before It dragged him away to Its own little corner of hell. He didn't get a say in the matter and drowsiness drowned any fight he had left in him.

* * *

The campfire was oddly silent. No friendly banter, no heroic speeches, nor long winded rants about stuff that -in the grand scheme of things- didn't matter. Just an atmosphere of utter bewilderment. The confusion hung in the air so thick that you could choke on it. Everyone was accounted for. Everyone was in their usually seats all around the burning flame; all except for _him._

Meg didn't like the empty seat next to her. She didn't like the vaguely Dwight shaped imprint left on the log. If she squinted she could barely make out the outline of what he would have looked like sitting there. She wanted it to be real more than anything.

She was there when it happened. The cracks of light, the world shaking and ripping itself apart. The masked manic diving after her friend in the light. It was all too much and after the dust had settled everyone was sent back to the campfire as if nothing ever happened.

Meg could see the confusion written on everyone's faces, that and the shock. For god knows how long they've been here, no matter how many times they've been cut, stabbed, ripped apart, or eaten alive they've always came back here. It was one of the few certainties of this strange place. One of the few things they clung to as the truth.

You face the trials.

You escape, or you're sacrificed.

And no matter what you always come back.

Someone or something changed that. Something that Meg couldn't hope to explain without a lifetime spent crafting theories and speculating. Despite being held prisoner in _It_s realm for countless (Days? Weeks? Months? No. No it must be) years, nobody had the slightest clue the inner workers of _It_. Well, that wasn't true was it? There was one maybe two people that they knew in the faintest sense of the word if you stretched the meaning a couple miles long.

Meg stood up from her log. All eyes set to her. Silently, she walked over to the patch of trees bordering the fire and behind the first log was a big stone set against the arching roots. She pushed the rock aside and pressed into the dirt was a tattered journal still covered in mud and grit. The name "Benedict Baker" embolden in big black letters on the cover.

Meg couldn't remember when they first found the old book. She just remembered how happy that they found it. Inside was a detailed guide of the trials they faced daily (or was it hourly?). The rules of the trial, the killers that hunted them, and the being that imprisoned them was all written down by some unlucky soul trapped in his hell. Sometimes they would find pages missing, torn from the spine to be lost forever. Other times they would find new pages scribbled madly on the aged parchment, barely legible or coherent. Another mind lost to madness.

Meg began flipping madly through the pages. The pages were worn, and the writing became more scrambled and frantic the further you read. Furious holes stabbed through with an over eager pen. As fast as she was skimming through journal, she took great care to not rip anymore pages. Have to preserve what's left.

Meg glanced at a page, a familiar passage laid out before her. Words that will always burn bright.

"_What defines reality? Is it just that you can taste and touch. Feel the pain as the blade slides in between your ribs. Taste the iron tinged flavour of blood in your mouth and the smell of death as the darkness takes you? Is it hope that drives you on? Hoping that the next time will bring your actual death, or hope that the next exit reveals a way back home. I yearn for some kind of escape. Be it death or life."_

Meg frowned, she couldn't find the answer she was looking for or wanted. She refused to believe that her friend was lost to the cold grip of death. As much of a mercy that may be, it wasn't possible her. She took the page by the corner of its tip and proceeded to the next one. She looked for a sign about blinding lights, cracks in the ground that swallowed her friend. Nothing.

She returned to her seat disheartened. Her thumb was wedged to the page where she left off.

"Find anything?" Jake asked.

Meg shook her head.

Claudette tapped Meg's shoulder. "Mind if I take a look?" She held out her hand, waiting to receive.

Meg handed the old journal over to which Claudette cradled it in her finger with the gentleness of a mother holding her child. She flipped through the pages, stopping ever so often to scan it in greater detail. With each page turned the hope in her face drained away until she closed the book entirely, faced with defeat.

Meg slowly opened and closed her eyes. Drowsiness taking hold of her. How long have they been here waiting for? Waiting for Dwight to just pop up like nothing ever happened. His same silly nervous grin tittering on joyful and fearful. Will he ever come back?

They were a team. A tight set of gears in a well-oiled machine. Except now a gear has fallen loose and is lost in the tangled clockwork. Sure, it might still work, might work for a long time, so long that Dwight becomes a distant memory. But without him, there would always be that dent in the log where he would sit. That very spot where he would rally the team together, keep the fires of hope burning bright.

Meg couldn't keep her eyes open. When was the last time she willing slept? Months? Years? Decades? And she hasn't aged a day throughout all of that. The only sign of time passing were the scars she'd been collecting on her body.

She closed her eyes one last time and before she knew it she was alone. Dark trees loomed over her, twisted branches scratching at the sky at the whim of the cold breeze. She looked to left and saw a perfectly good generator resting against the bark. One thing was made certain: The trials will continue with or without her friend.

She knelt and got to work, trying her best to stay focus to keep her mind from wondering. But she couldn't help but be terrified at the thought that he was gone forever. He might not have even escaped. The image of Dwight's body plummeting in the void shook Meg to her core. She thought this even as the haunting ring of the bell echoing thought the trees.

These trials weren't a race, they were a marathon and Meg wasn't eager to meet the end. She snapped herself out of her mournful state. But there was a creeping thought in the back of her mind. Why? Why did the world split open? Why did Dwight decided to crawl inside? Why did he leave them behind?

Meg tried to dash the idea away before it went any further. Focus on the task at hand: survive. You're still in this race. She told herself. You're still here. And you're going to make it!

Meg went to work untangling and reattaching broken strips of greasy wires. The engine purred to life, a flash of light pushed away the fog. Then the bell toiled, and Meg heard the distant cries of her friends. She ran through the trees in a mad sprint, digging her cleats into the ground for that extra burst of speed. She will survive, if not for her then for the sake of everyone else.

* * *

The hospital's halls were dirty and decrypted. Several windows were cracked open or missing entirely letting in a faint breeze devoid of cold or warmth. Wires hung from holes the ceiling. A few naked wires dripping with hot sparks. The florescent lights flickered as they struggled to fed off the dark.

Dwight knew his way around, at least enough to hide. He knew of the treatment theater that was vaguely at the heart of this labyrinth and the Doctor's office that was somewhere by that. The exactly layout may shift in any number of directions, but a general rule was established.

He cursed under his breath as the fog rolled in. He was already devoid of the view gifted to him by the wide-open spaces he was accustomed to running though, now _It_ decided that wasn't bad enough and added a blanket of fog on top of that. "Of course." Dwight sighed.

Dwight peeked carefully around every corner, not just keeping an eye out for whatever monster of the week that'll be hunting him, but for those precious generators. He was so use to watching the tall tower of lights that sprouted from them that it was his main way of finding them. The receptivity design of the halls made navigation a difficult. Carefully he inched deeper and deeper in the sterile white halls.

He began to panic when his hair stood up on edge. The faint feeling of static pulling at what little arm hair Dwight had. He already knew who it was a began to run.

A wave of lightning lit up the floor beneath him. The energy piercing his feet, bouncing up and down his legs. Shooting further up his body until he could taste the electricity on the tip of his tongue. A scream gathered in his lungs. Dwight closed his month to hold it in, covering it with his hands to form an airtight vice grip. It didn't matter, by his own will or _It_s, the scream slipped from his lips.

It was the giggle that came after that terrified him. That childish glee from the suffering of others. It was human only in shape. Its mind crushed only to be reformed under a new master. The thing's eyes were held open by two metal wires stapled to the side of its face. The wire snaking beneath its blood eyelids. Its mouth formed a smile under the medical vice. Blood drooling down its chin. That innocent giggle gargling in its mouth.

It raised its charred hand and released another bolt of electricity that struck the floor. Dwight took the jolt and screamed again. The thing laughed as he did so, relishing the twisted joy.

Dwight turned to run when another jolt twisted his legs into a pretzel knot. He fell face first on the cold concrete floor. The white robed figure towered over Dwight's frail, feeble body. His burnt, flayed smiling face and his unblinking eyes as he grabbed Dwight by his temples. Sparks flying from his black fried fingertips and then-

* * *

Dwight woke up screaming at the top of this lungs. All the machines that he was hooked up to were blaring with beeps and alarms. The doctors and nurse rushed to his bedside. They held him down against the chemically smelling sheets as he thrashed wildly at them.

"What happened? What's the situation?" One of the doctors demanded.

"He just woke up!" The nurse explained.

"Well, give me a sedative! We have to calm him down before he hurts himself."

Dwight watched in horror as the doctor was handed a clear syringe. He placed his hand on Dwight's forehead and pushed his head into the pillow. He put on a brave smile, unnatural smile like behind held by invisible strings. "Now son, you're going to feel much better in just a moment's notice. Right as rain."

Dwight could only focus on the smile. That same, forced smile. He couldn't see metal and wires holding it open, but he knew it was there. It was the doctor's touch against his temple that set Dwight over the edge. Half expecting to feel the sharp jolt of electricity flow through him and half expecting to walk up from yet another nightmare.

"No! Get away!" He screamed before the needled plunged into arm.

Dwight's arms went limp and his shoulder slackened. A blanket of calm wrapped around him in a tight nit cocoon of sluggishness. His arms decided that they would be much better laying at Dwight's sides then fend off any intrusive doctors. His heart forced to slow down and take in a shallower breath.

The doctor looming over him breathed a sigh of relief. "Nurse, I want you to watch this one for an hour or two. We're spread thin enough as it is, and we don't need him having another episode."

The nameless nurse nodded. "Yes sir."

The doctor gave one last worried glance at Dwight before leaving to attend to the neighboring patients. The nurse began looking over Dwight's machines again. Her perceptive eyes watching the lights flicker and her ears listened carefully at the beat of Dwight's heart. Her eyes drifted to the scars littered on Dwight's arm. Her cold, serious expression softened at the sight of them.

She carefully took Dwight's arm in her hands, going over every single scar. Her mind racing with how and what did this to him.

She gazed into Dwight's eyes with morbid curiosity. "What happened to you?"

Dwight choose his words with care. Each syllable finely crafted and refined to articulate what he meant.

"I went to hell." He muttered, his voice trembling with each word. Memories of running down endless hallways flashed in his mind. He started to shake. Despite the medicine's best efforts, Dwight's heart resembled that of a marathon runner than a sedated patient. The heartbeat machine lighting up like a Christmas tree.

The nurse had more questions lined up, her next sentence rising in her throat, but the look of horror, the absolute terror that persisted and thrived in Dwight despite being -by all means- intoxicated. Whatever but the fear of god made sure that it was rooted deep into his very being.

"Eh, on second thought why don't you tell me your name, sir? We need to know your emergency contacts."

"My family…" Dwight let out a sigh. "My name is Dwight."

"And your last name, sir?"

His last name. Fairfield, a name that felt so foreign on his tongue. Everyone just called him Dwight. Sure, they knew his last name. Everyone was just on a first name basis because shouting "Dwight!" was a lot easier and quicker than shouting "Dwight Fairfield!". Back there every second counted, and they shaved off anything that wasn't essential. "Fairfield. My name is Dwight Fairfield and my parents' number is-"

"Fairfield? Where does that sound familiar? Oh," The nurse reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. After a few quick presses and swipes on the touch screen she held the phone up for Dwight to see. The phone displayed a news article. The headlines written in bold **Missing Person: Dwight Fairfield still not found.**

"We know about the Fairfield family! Were you the boy they lost a while back? We'll call them immediately and let them know where you are." The nurse was avoiding looking at him as if the many scars and wounds will leap off Dwight's body and onto hers. She was staring at the clipboard tucked at the end of the bed.

"You're lucky to be alive, Dwight. It says here that you have almost every wound in the book."

Dwight looked down at his hands. Burns and scars collected all up his arms through countless trials. Claw marks, chainsaw teeth, and crude cuts ran up and down his body. It made Dwight tremble to think that his life is owed to that terrible, nameless thing stitching him up.

"With the amount of blood, you lost, you must have a guardian angel." Dwight put on a fake smile. An angel was a poor description for his 'savor'. More of a devil if anything. "Get your rest, sir. We'll let you know if you have a visitor."

"Ho… How long was I gone?"

"How long? I'm not sure, sir. Last time I heard of that was a year ago." She tied a loose strand of blond hair and pulled it back behind her ears.

Dwight shot up from his bed. The monitor exploding with a mad beeping.

"A Year!? I've only been gone for one year?"

The nurse woman nodded her head. "More or less. I don't know exactly, sir. You need to calm down."

"Nurse! Is something wrong with the patient?" A doctor called from across the hall.

"No, sir! Everything is fine!" The nurse put her hand and slowly lowered Dwight down into the bed. "Please sir, calm down. You need to rest and recover."

Dwight laid down to catch his breath. His reality shattered before him. "No, it's been years. I've been in that nightmare for so many years that I lost count. It couldn't have been just one. It couldn't have been."

"You need some time alone, sir. Get some rest and if you need me you can press the little button at the side your bed for assistance." The nurse quickly departed and vanished among the shift current of white coats and blue gowns. Dwight, left alone with this horrifying realization, laid there away. His eyes barely finding the time to blink. Ever vigilant.

"There's no way I made it. No way in hell I escaped. I.. I couldn't have." Dwight griped his head to keep his thoughts from spilling out. Guilt festering into a twisted coil in his soul. "I promised. I promised we'd all leave together. There's no way I got out. I couldn't have left them behind."

The heartbeat monitor slowed to a more acceptable pace. The rhythmic beat pounding in Dwight's ears. His eyes glued to the corner of the room that was his blind spot. His body tensed up waiting for one of the doctors to turn around and reveal that forced mechanical grin and utter that childlike laughter.

* * *

Margret mindlessly washed the dishes piling up in the sink. Scrubbing the dried grit of yesterday's dinner. The morning birds were singing their same sad song as they did every morning. Margret wished they would add a few new singers to their stale choir.

Today felt like any other day. Jeremy was off at work. Hopefully he'll get that promotion he's always been vying for. He works harder in that office as anybody. Margret doesn't see why he should be left in the dust. Derik's big game was in a week. That'll be fun to see all that training go to good use. Quite afternoons throwing the old football around had become somewhat of a family pastime. Derik will be so proud when everyone-

She cringed quietly to herself. No, everyone wouldn't be there. She reminded herself. But Jeremy and her will be and that's what matters, at least to Derik.

Margret went back to dishwasher duty, washing the stubborn string beans off Derik's plate. Someone like Derik should be eating their greens. Margret marked that down as a mental note.

She heard a sudden knock at the door and Margret raised an eyebrow. Who could that be? She set the dishes down in the warm pool of water gathering in the sink, dried her hands in her napkin and walked to the front door. Her soft slippers barely making a sound as she walked across the floorboards.

The visitor knocked again, this time with more vigor. Margret was off put by this.

"Who's there? I have a gun! Don't think of doing anything funny!" She yelled behind the safety of a three locked door.

"Margret! Margret let me in! It's Jeremy! Let me in Margret I have to tell you something, now!" Margret reached over and undid the three locks bolted to the side of the door. Sliding the chains out of their sheathes before Jeremy jammed his key into the door lock and nearly threw the door open in Margret's face.

"Margret!" Jeremy fell through the door, tripping over his own excited steps. His face stretched to a wide goofy grin. His eyes red with tears of joy. He clutched his cellphone so tight in his hand that Margret thought he'd crush it.

Jeremy wrapped his arms around her and squeezed, pulling her close to his warm chest.

"Jeremy, what is it?" Margret asked. "Shouldn't you be at work? What's the occasion?"

Jeremy pulled back, raising his phone up to Margret's face. On the screen was a single picture of a bloody boy, barely man with slack features not to dissimilar to Jeremy's and her own. His glasses were broken beyond belief and his eyes were bloodshot cherries glued into his face. Despite looking like he'd been dunked into a woodchipper, pulled out and throw into a pool of razors; it was unmistakably him.

Margret cupped her mouth and slowly backed away in disbelief. "Is it really him?" She asked with choked words. Jeremy nodding madly.

"They found him. They finally found him." His goofy smile grew even wider. His whole-body trembling in excitement.

Margret whipped her eyes to stop the waterworks. Tears soaking her freshly dried sleeves. "Where is he? Where is out boy?"

"He's in the hospital in Weeks. Just a few miles down the road."

"The hospital!"

"They said he's fine. We can pick him up today!"

Margret grabbed Jeremy by his dress shirt and dragged him to the car parked outside. "Then what are we waiting for? Let's bring him home!" The bird's chirping no longer seemed monotonous. They were cheering. Today was a special day.

* * *

Dwight didn't wait for the static shock to hit him. He ran down the hospital's halls as that thing in the white lab coat gave chase.

"Jake! Meg! Claud! Anybody, help me!" He screamed.

A spotlight of crimson washed over him. The killer raised its instrument of punishment and slammed it into Dwight's back. The small metal pricks ripping into his flesh. Dwight was flung forward, reeling in pain. He struggled to keep running, biting his tongue, forcing himself to stay conscience.

The doctor gigglled manically at the sight of his handiwork. He patted his weapon in the palm of his hand. Congratulating itself on a job well done.

Dwight kept running, ducking and diving through windows and around corners, but the killer was always right on his tail. His heart pounding in his ears. His footsteps following the deafening beat. At last he found himself at the center of it all: The treatment theater.

A circle of electrical chairs surrounded him. Above him was this spark spitting machine with static screens ripped from the guts of televisions. Long, dark wires fell from the ceiling and wrapped themselves around the chair's metal straps. A shiny steel dome with flickering lights hungered for human heads to char and burn with fierce lightning.

Dwight was cornered. The exits were shut, there was no where to run. His friends had abandoned him to his fate. The doctor relished in Dwight's misery. Sending forth another bolt of lightning across the floor. Dwight twitched and convulsed as the electricity coursed through his body. The doctor struck Dwight down in this moment of weakness, giggling all the while to himself.

Shadow whispers poured into Dwight's ears. He knew. Nobody had to tell him that _It_ was talking to him or at least it had the voice of It. Its unfathomable words awakening something dark locked away in his mind. His hope, his fears, his ambition were all set for the chopping block. Maybe It was mocking Dwight, bragging about how it could take just that little bit more from him. Or maybe it was looking for something else because it had already taken so much.

Dwight felt nothing but the cold. Even when the doctor bashed his weapon into his skull, Dwight only felt the chill of something colder than he ever thought possible. The chill of the void. He was slipping away. No hope, no fear, just an empty vessel to be tossed away and forgotten.

"Sir."

In his final moments, Dwight realized this was the only escape.

"Dwight!"

A dark, gentle place where he could never be hurt again.

"Dwight, wake up!"

Dwight awoke to the kindhearted nurse lightly gently nudging his shoulder. His eyes shot wide open. Images of his nightmare still fresh in his head. He jumped from his bed, cords and wires yanked free from his skin.

"Dwight!" The nurse cried out in panic.

Dwight dove behind another patient's bed. The nurse raced to catch him.

"Dwight, I need you to calm down!"

"Stay away from me!" Dwight pointed to the formless figure hiding behind her eyes. "I know you're watching me! Trying to make me think I got away!" Dwight snatched the terrified patient's bedpan from under him. "But there is no escape. Death is not an escape! I'm still here! I know it! You're just trying to trick me! Get away! Haven't you taken enough!" He wielded the bedpan like a weapon, spilling human waste all over the floor with each blind swing.

"Doctors! Doctors, we have a situation!"

"Where are they? What did you do to my friends? Give them back, you monster!"

"What are you talking about Dwight? What's gotten into you?" The nurse coward in fear. Dwight raised the bedpan over his head, ready to strike the monster down.

"Dwight!" The voice cut through the madness like a hot knife through butter. That tone of voice warm as freshly made soup. Dwight, feeling rather embarrassed at his emotional outburst, dropped the bedpan from his shaking grip and turned to the direction of the voice.

At the end of the hall stood two souls Dwight believed he'd never see again. Even in his darkest moments he remembered them, clung to their memory as a rat to a sinking ship. He did everything and everything to keep his head above water so that the fear and horror didn't drag him down into the depths.

One was tall and lanky, wearing a dress shirt and tie. His beard hanging off his face to give the idea that he was burly. His bald head emphasizing the oversized glasses on his face. The other was short and round. Her checks warm and red as the Sunday gown she was wearing.

"Mom? Dad?" He sobbed. Tears of joy streaming down his face as he ran in for a hug. They embraced him. Dwight had his doubts. The scrapyard, the hospital, even the sunlight. All of which could have been a ploy to get his hopes up only to be swept away as a cruel prank. But this, this wasn't a trick. This was genuine love, something that could never be replicated. Dwight squeezed his parents tighter. His tears staining his hospital gown. He was home.

* * *

Frank stood alone in the darkness. He floated aimlessly, no ground to stand on. The shifting shadows shrouded a dark ember glow. A small dark pocket of a much bigger bubble created just for him. Just another speck of dust in the uncaring universe. Frank had now power here and he believed that was the point.

The thing couldn't be seen, its presence was simply felt. It was everything to ground you stand on to the very air you breathe. It wasn't civilized. The parasite was a shapeless, gaping maw that lead to a bottomless vacuum of depravity. Its hunger could never be satisfied, its fantasies could never be quenched. It scratched and clawed at reality itself, clinging desperately to the foothold it made for itself.

And Frank made it angry. He failed it. It was _his fault. The prey escaped because of him! And he had nothing to offer it. He was less than worthless._

Frank madly shook his head. Those weren't his thoughts. _It_ had its claws on the driver's wheel, steering Frank's mind to its whim. Long, invisible spider tendrils dug into his brain to infect every thought and shred every semblance of self-worth. It wanted to drag him down to his lowest point.

It didn't speak or at least not in the conventional sense and rarely was it needed to send a message. Frank felt its wordless will, the rage seared his skin. Visible whiffs of steam rising through his jacket. The chill of the void crept out from under him, threatening to sallow him whole. The message was clear. _Why shouldn't I?_

"Wait! Wait! Wait! You don't have to do this!" Frank begged. The cold crept further up his legs, chilling him to the bone. It was colder than the snow back home. Colder than the looks on their faces when they looked at him.

"I can fix this!" He was so used to saying that. _I can fix this._ He really thought he could. The words so perfectly pronounced that he could have won one of those useless reward for it. Practice makes perfect after all.

The cold crept higher. Frank's body tensed as he struggled to wiggle his foot. His legs have gone completely numb. The void was taking him. A cold, quiet place. It was almost inviting if it wasn't for the burning desire to prove that he wasn't something that could just be thrown away like trash. He dug his nails into the palm of his hand. A small trickle of blood running down his fingertips. He was somebody! He was Frank _fucking _Morrison!

"I'll get him back!" Frank roared in the darkness. The echo of his declaration echoing off the darkness. The cold stopped just below his hips. The air became still. _It_ was listening.

"I'll get him back, so you don't have to. Give me chance. I'll bring him back and prove that I'm worthy of you! I'll rip out his guts and strangle him with em! I'll tear him apart!" The feral fury was intoxicating. The need, the desire to rip and tear was something to hold on to, an anchor in the madness. Something that reminded him who he was.

It didn't make a sound. Not approval nor disapproval. Frank's eyes frantically darted through the shifting shadows, looking for any sign that his little promise made a dent in his fate. If not, then this wasn't a meeting, it was an execution.

Cold sweat ran beneath his mask. His own breath feeling heavy and burdensome. The silence was deafening. Frank wanted to crawl out of his skin and run away to curl up in some corner of the dark and be forgotten.

No! Frank Morrison doesn't hide! Frank Morrison doesn't run from nobody! That scrawny, four eyed twerp made a mockery of him! Made him look like a fool in front of everybody! Nobody gets away with that not without a few scars and bruises.

"I can find him, blend in. No one will notice. No attention brought to you! That's what you want right? Not being noticed? I can bring him back and no one will be the wiser. Face it, I look the most human out of all of them!"

It stirred. Red, hot anger lashed out. A steaming red mark branded over Frank's skin. A reminder of the reward cockiness gets you. _I don't need you._

"Okay! Okay, you're in completely control! You're in charge! Just…" Frank wrapped his arms around himself. His lip quivered, and he began to shake. "Just please, let me do this. I need this, what we have. I have nothing else out there! I have no reason to stay out there. I belong here. Just let me prove that to you. I can do this, please." He pleaded. Every ounce of concentration spent to hold back the tears welling in his eyes.

Frank couldn't lie to the _It_. It chose him, it knew him better than he knew himself. Part of It was embedded into his very being the moment he walked into its neck of the woods. A constant reminder that It was the master and he was the servant. But there was something comforting about that. Never being truly alone.

It reached out a long, shadow limb with spots of orange thrown about on it and held Frank in place. The cold chill creaming up past his hips then stopping right before reaching his ribs. One slip and he'd be sent hurtling into the black nothingness. A clear warning of what's to come. One last message before he left. _Do not disappoint._

Frank smiled beneath his mask, a twisted grimace to match his mask. "You won't regret this. I'll bring him home."


	3. Chapter 3- The Hunt Continues

Break traps, jump the windows, do generators and escape. That was the plan. They've been over this, time and time again. They talked about this. They planned for this. If he just follows the plan then everything will be fine. Perfect even. They'll talk about it around the campfire. He wouldn't be a problem. The problem was them.

Jake peaked his head around the tree trunk. In the distance through the crooked branches was his good friend hanging two feet off the ground. A cruel breeze swinging her side to side like a human wind chime. Her whimpers of pain stabbed at Jake's heart worse than any hook could.

Beside her was the masked thing that captured her. It stood there watching the shadowy tendrils crawl up the steel beam, inching closer and closer to its captive's face. Claudette looked up in horror as the spider's claw came down on her. She caught the claw mid swing, pushing back with all her might. The creature seemed indifferent or silently relishing the nightmarish display.

Break the trap, jump the window, and unhook Claudette. That was the backup plan. A contingency encase the first plan failed, but neither plan considered this. The beast watches and waits for its master to do its wicked work. It was savoring the suffering.

Jake watched and waited for a chance, an opening, something that will let him save her. If there was a chance, it wasn't revealing itself to him. A crow flew from the branches and landed beside him. It pecked at the ground, completely accepting of Jake's presence. Jake didn't take his eyes off it. One wrong slip up and the startled crow will lead to his doom.

Another crow dove down, finding Jake's shaggy head of hair as a perfect resting place. Strange how the realm works. If Jake didn't know better, he'd believe these crows were real and not some extension of the nameless thing that created them. The spies from the shadows gathered around him. Silently watching and waiting. Was _It_ watching and waiting in anticipation? Was _It_ waiting for him to succeed or fail?

Jake took a slow, silent breath. Without making any sudden movements he turned to check on Claudette. Still hanging off a hook with that butcher with iron hooks digging into its skin watching.

"Come on." Jake cursed under his breath. "Leave."

He wished he knew where the others were. Dwight usually kept track of that. Jake struggled to keep a mental map of everyone and Dwight made it seem so effortless. The realm was ever shifting, ever expanding that no map could ever hope to chart. Jake focused on himself, he thrived in the solitude; the here and now. He tried to recall where his team was.

Off in the fog, somewhere in that vague, gray mess Meg was somewhere hopefully working on a generator while Jake was here. That's where he last saw her, elbow deep in the mechanical guts. They already loss someone else to that monster in the mask. It used the same tactic of waiting for the nameless Entity to do the work for it. If it comes down to just two, they don't have much chance of getting out alive.

Thoughts of doubt crept in Jake's mind. _She's doomed, done for! Run! Run as far as you can get! Focus on yourself! Go fix a generator and save yourself!_

Jake didn't dare shake his head. The nosy crow picking bits of twigs out off his head. The terrible thoughts clung to him like a festering tumor. They spilled out to the front of his mind. Fear forcing itself upon him. A terrible voice that sounded too much like his own spoke to him.

_She would leave you to rot given the chance. She would have-_

Then Jake saw the look of fear on her face. Those wide, bloodshot eyes with the pupil shrunk so far that it was a tiny black dot. He knows what it's like, they all do. The dark, the cold, having what made you **you** ripped away by _It_ and violated beyond what was thought possible. Jake wouldn't wish it on his worst enemy, even the mindless beasts that stalk them. That empty void in his chest was a constant reminder of what bonded them all together. He couldn't let Claudette go through that, not again.

Meg would make a great distraction. Jake thought. She could outrun the killer long enough for Jake to save Claudette. If they go looking for another generator instead of patching her up, they might make it out in time. Meg will just pull one of her "escape at the last second" kinda stunts. Jake himself sadly wasn't much of a runner.

The monstrous tendril crept closer and closer. Claudette's clock was about to strike the final hour. If there was any time for a heroic rescue, it would be now.

Jake turned away from his fear to the audience of crows he had assembled. Their tiny, black beady eyes staring at him, staring through him with the eldritch hunger of their master.

_She's not coming! Meg isn't coming to help! __**You**__ have to do something! __**You**__ have to save her!_

It wasn't fear talking. Jake heard a new voice drown out the festering fear. A voice that pushed back the dark clouds and parted the storm. Eerily familiar. The voice was trembling. It was something small and fragile forcing itself to be big and bold. To fill the role that it was never meant for. Jake could paint a perfect picture of the voice's face. His broken glasses and nervous smile gave Jake new found confidence. He's ran through these woods countless times, what's wrong with another go around?

Jake, still careful not to disturb the crows, wrapped his hand around the flashlight hooked to his belt and gave it a light shake. The batteries rattled in its plastic case. There was little left to use. He'd have to make it count.

Jake bolted from his spot, the dark angels flew in a swarm of black feathers and startled squawks. Claudette's face lit up when she saw Jake come to play the savor. The indomitable monster turned its head. It gripped the bloody handle of its cleaver. Its feet firmly planted in front of the hook. Then it turned back to Claudette, content with its kill.

Jake tried his damnedest to grab the killer's attention. He shouted, he taunted, he even did that little crouch dance that always seems to piss them off one way or another, but the monster did not budge. This was its domain, it was in complete control of the situation.

The tendrils crawled closer. Pointing at the base of Claudette's chest. She doesn't have much time before the final blow is struck!

_You have to be brave, so that they can be. _The voice reminded Jake.

"You too scared to chase little old me?" Jake unhooked the flashlight and began clicking it on and off in a erratic motion. The beam flickering on and off in the beast's face was enough to pull its attention away from the horrid display.

"You scared? You're so scared! You're not good enough to kill all of us!"

It huffed and sorted like an enraged bull. It gripped its cleaver until its knuckles grew white. A subtle twitch of its head told Jake that it knew that this was a trick. It knew and it didn't care.

The monster charged after the bold survivor, a faceless fury burning within it. Jake dashed away and the chase begins!

"Yes!" Jake silently cheered.

Jake couldn't help but smile. Meg'll go pull down Claudette and patch her up. They'll go find the last of the generators while he works his magic. They'll get out! No festering darkness, no creeping cold, just the warm campfire waiting for them on the other side of the gate! They were going to escape! All he has to do is run!

All that hope blossoming into a face wide smile. His face beaming so bright that it could be mistaken for the flashlight in his hand. For once in a long time, Jake felt hope. A certainty that they would escape brushed against his fingertips so close that he could feel it. Then he heard the snap of metal teeth digging into his flesh.

Jake fell to the ground. His leg bitten by the bear trap hidden amongst the grass. The tip of the teeth biting into bone. Jake cried out in agony

The beast stopped in its tracks and turned its head to the side. The smile of the mask matched the one underneath. He marched back to the hook to check on his prey. Jake wedged his fingers into the bear trap, using all of his strength to tear open the rusty jaw. The mechanical workings were covered in wax, too stubborn to move. The butcher came prepared.

"Meg!" He screamed as loud as his voice would allow. His screams echoing through the pines. "Meg, get Claudette! Get her now! Its coming back! Meg!"

Jake pulled and pulled with all his might. In the distance he could see Claudette struggling to hold against _It_s relentless assault. He cried out for Meg again, begging her to save Claudette before it was too late.

From the shadows, Meg was racing closely behind the beast for the hook. She was in a full sprint; a race car on nitro. She ran and ran with all her might and the butcher battered her away as if she were put a fly.

Jake reached out as the spider's tendrils pierced Claudette's chest, pulling her up into the dark void of black smoke and whispering fog that split opened the sky. He saw the fate that awaited him and he knew of a fate much worse if he gave up.

The Trapper stopped and turned to Jake. Soon the beast was standing over. A towering monster that took the shape of a man. Jake could see the curved bars of iron snaking in and out of its body, showing warped and twisted reflections of Jake's own face. The mask smiling while it stared down its next victim.

Jake pounded his fists against the monster's leather hide. He punched, kicked and squirmed to be free of the butcher's grip. It continued its march to the hook unabated as if Jake's efforts were little more a light breeze. His struggles were in vain.

The hook was drawing near. Jake didn't have much time. He clung to the dying embers of hope that he would be saved, that there was an escape. Meg jumped from the behind the tree trunks and into the path of the killer. She spread her arms wide to either side and Jake realized what she was doing.

"No, Meg run! You can still get out!" Jake begged, but she wouldn't budge an inch.

Meg blocked the path between the killer and their horrendous hook. She stood her ground, the unmovable object braced for the unstoppable force. But Meg was far from invincible.

Without batting an eye, the butcher raised its cleaver and struck Meg down with all its might. The cleaver dug into her shoulder with a soft crunch. The arm dangled at the underside of the shoulder clinging to the rest of the body with a few inches of flesh . Blood painted the grass crimson and bones splintered and shattered into the dirt. Still Meg stood tall. Her eyes blazing with righteous fury.

Jake continued to struggle. He screamed for her to run, to hide, but that same savor's spirit was infectious. The killer raised its cleaver and struck her again, cutting off the rest of her arm and lodging itself into her ribs. Jake watched in horror as Meg collapsed. Her gargled screams the only sound to escaped her lips. Reduced to a pinata with the candy spilling out.

Jake finally wiggled free from the killer's iron grip. He hit the ground feet first and ran without looking back. He'd seen enough to last a thousand lifetimes.

Jake didn't even know if the masked beast was after him still. He just kept running. Running through the endless acre of pine trees. The moon shined down shafts of light through the leaves and twisted branches, illuminating the featureless path ahead with no end in sight.

On any other day Jake would feel at home here. No legacy to follow up on, no overly high expectations to let down, just him and the wild. Nature only works in ultimatums: Survive or don't. Here it's no different. You either live or you die, but at what cost?

They were gone. Everyone was gone. Claudette, Meg, and Dwight. His friends were gone and Jake was all alone stumbling in through the pines. He dashed behind a large tree dripping with putrid sap. He curled up by the roots and closed his eyes. He focused on the call of the crows, the wind in through the leaves and pretended he was back home. Back home in the pines, all by himself, just him and the wild. The way he liked it.

Jake was ready to cruel up and die. He waited to face his mortality with the slight hope that this death would be his last. And then a voice spoke to him.

_You have to survive to prove that it's possible. Keep that hope alive._

It wasn't fear nor hope talking, it was Jake's own voice. That will to survive may dim, but it never goes out. Even in the darkest of times there is a light at the end guiding the way.

The crows rustled in the branches above. Jake's heart pounded in his ears. He was not alone. He picked himself up, wiping the sticky sap off his gloves and ran deeper into the fog ridden forest.

"I won't give up here." He told himself.

The masked butcher strode through the fog as it were his own. Its cleaver dripping red with fresh crimson.

"You want me? I'm not giving up yet, so you're going to have to work for it!" Jake taunted as he dashed into the fog. The hunt was still on.

* * *

"And it appears that your son is in good health, maim." The overworked doctor told the parents.

"Oh that's so good to hear!" Dwight mother squeezed him like a childhood toy. "We'll be able to take him home soon?"

"I believe he can leave today if you would just sign some paperwork." The doctor pulled out his desk drawer. A fine collection of crumpled papers stuffed in with the promise of being cleaned later. He reached in and pulled out a single sheet. "This is the release form. Just sign here, here and here and he'll be good to go!"

Dwight's mother signed the document in the blink of an eye. The pen steaming at the point when she put it down. She turned to Dwight gave her son another bone crushing hug.

"Your coming home, sweetie! Your finally coming home!" She cried, tears streaming down her already wet cheeks.

The doctor brushed his shaking hand through his disheveled head of hair. He took a nervous sigh, preparing the words he had to say.

"Now, we found some suspicious markings on your son's body, maim." He pointed to Dwight's scar ridden arms. "I would advise that you stop by the police department before you leave down. Now I can't force you or your son to do anything, but I would strongly recommend reporting to the police given the… strange circumstances in his disappearance. Your son has been gone for…"

He flips through the documents scattered over his desk, finally finding the one he wanted out of the bunch and holding it up to the blinking overhead light. The calendar was dripping with red ink. Weeks and months crossed out in a million little Xs.

"A whole year now?"

A whole year. Still didn't seem real. Just a year? Countless days spent running in that tangled realm reduced to but a single year. Months spent wallowing in fear, starved for the hope that _It_ wanted. Dwight struggled to stop himself from shaking. It couldn't have been that short. He refused to believe it.

"Yes, he's been gone for a whole year and we are very thankful that you found him!" Dwight's mother got up and shook the doctor's hand. "We'll stop by and tell them everything we know."

"Very good. Dwight," The doctor faced the tense teenager. His eyes filled with compassion and hope, as if he just witnessed a miracle. "You're going to be okay."

Dwight hesitated to touch to doctor's outstretched hand. The white lab coat casted a sharp glare into his eyes. When he gripped his trembling hand with his own he expected to feel a jolt of lightning.

"Thank you doctor."

As Dwight left the care of the hospital he saw how stretched thin they truly were. A handful of doctors and fewer nurses to boot. Dark circles hung from their eyes. A trophy for those long sleepless nights caring for the sick. The nurse that tended to Dwight was waiting at the front door of the clinic. Smiling and waving as he pushed open the glass doors to freedom.

He waved back. Dwight wanted to ask for her name, to give a proper thanks, but the scent of blood drifting from the depths of hospital proved too much him. The doors flew open and Dwight was outside.

The sunlight burned his eyes. Dwight shielded his eyes. The sun pointed a personal beam of light directly into Dwight's eyes socket to make up for the lost time. His retina sealed shut.

"My eyes! My eyes! I'm blind!" Dwight cried out.

He reeled back inside, bumping into his father's rather small frame. The slight force almost sent both of them falling to the floor. Dwight's dad grabbed him firm by the shoulders -mostly to support himself- and held Dwight up.

"Son. Son! You're not blind. Open your eyes."

Dwight peeked open one eye and the insidious sun was waiting to hit him with another flash of blinding light. The irony was not lost on him. At least the sun wasn't flickering on and off in mockery.

"I can't. I can't it's too bright! Help me!"

"Here son, try these."

Dwight's father slipped on a pair of sunglasses over Dwight's glasses. Through a rough fit, they mostly did the job by dimming the damn sun's rays. Dwight opened his still burning eyes as they adjusted to the sun. His father's face smiling nervously at him.

"You're okay son. You wear those glasses as long as you need to."

Dwight's mother sprinted outside.

"Dwight! Dwight are you okay? What happened baby? What happened?" She held him tight. Dwight felt his back crack from his mother's forceful embrace.

"I'm fine, mom. It's… it's just bright outside."

Dwight's mother put him down.

"Are you sure? We can wait until it gets dark and-"

"NO!" Dwight suddenly blurted it. The thought of being out in the dark, being dragged away by nameless things. No. No not again. Never again. "I want to go home now!" He told them. His voice trembling with fear. "Let's get going!"

Outside, the town of Weeks a desolate ghost town. Outside the hospital stood rows upon rows of ruin and decay. Buildings that once stood tall not rot from the inside out. Crumbling monuments reduced to echos of the past. Only the wary denizens of Weeks remains, trapped here for one reason or another.

All eyes were glued to him. This uneventful town is experiencing the biggest news story they had in years. Some stared at him with awe and wonder, and other looked upon Dwight with fear and horror. In the back of their minds they knew Weeks was doomed to a slow death. They're last hour will be nothing more than a dying gasp of an old corpse. The life sucked away by that nameless parasite Dwight knew all too well. An empty husk devoid of hope.

Dwight couldn't bare to look at any of them any longer. He knew the thing that haunted them, the stench of its handy work hung in the air like a mesamic cloud, so thick it was palpable. The missing posters that coated the walls on every corner on every street, piled on top of each other begging for attention. He wished get as far away from here as humanly possible.

His father put his hand on Dwight's shoulder. He ushered him to the street.

"Don't worry son, we won't be staying long. The car is just right out here. Come on now." Dwight's father ushered him into the old, rusted machine. With a turn of the keys the engine sputtered and spit a puff of black smoke from the exhausted.

"Darn thing's always doing this." Dwight's father grumbled to himself as they took off.

The town didn't look much better on the car ride. What the few structures that remained were nothing more than shadows of their former selves. On the ride back home Dwight saw the shambles of the scrapyard where the old man sat in his little guard box smoking cigarettes and listening to the radio playing the same five songs.

The police station was run by a skeleton crew wasting the day away sitting at the front steps of their dilapidated station. A few vagrants wondered around the sun scorched streets. Talking among themselves as if the town wasn't eroding away before their eyes. Maybe if they ignore it, the corruption that took hold will move elsewhere and life could return to normal; if such a thing is still possible. Dwight's mother and father ducked their heads as they passed. Dwight's father pulled his hat over his face.

"Uh, dad? We passed the station." Dwight pointed through the dirty glass to the boarded up building being swallowed up by the horizon.

"Don't worry about that right now, sweetie. Just enjoy the ride." Dwight's mother said as she flicked on the radio.

Before them lay miles of empty open road. Rows of trees lined up on either side. The road cutting the forest down the middle. Lush green as far as the eye could see. A long claw of trees reaching out of Weeks. At least these woods were bathed in daylight. Dwight kept his head away from the window. He didn't dare peer past the branches. Too many memories weighed him down.

At the end of the road stood a small silhouette. A handful of buildings that formed the small town Dwight called home. Home. His home. Dwight wiped the tears from his eyes. Part of him was still expecting to wake up from this perfect dream. To wake up back at the campfire before the nightmare continues. The rest of him just savored the moment. The taste of freedom and sunlight on his skin. He was actually going home.

"We've been so worried about you, sweetie." His mother cried, still wiping the continuous stream of tears rolling down her face that threatened to flood the inside of the car. She patted down her cheeks with a handkerchief. "But you're safe now. Everything is going to be okay, just like they were before." She choked on her words. She could hardly contain her excitement. "We're going to be a family again!"

Dwight's father glanced nervously at his son in the rearview mirror. The untold truth on the tip of his tongue.

"Now son, things have…. changed since you were gone." His father spoke as sweat began to drip from his brow. His gaze set on the road. "But… but you don't have to worry about that. You're safe now, son. You're mother is right. Things will go back to normal. And if you ever want to talk about… you know…. what happened, we're here for you."

Dwight swallowed his words like bitter medicine. There was a time and a place for talking. This was neither. Dwight kept his attention to the floor of the car. Dirty with some bits of old chip bags and the occasional soda can. Dwight reached down and began picking up the bits of trash, collecting them in a pile beside his feet. A nice distraction for the long drive.

"Don't worry him with all that nonsense!" His mother scorned. "Dwight, sweetie, everything is fine."

"Everything isn't find, Margret. He deserves to know. We can't just keep it from him."

"Keep what from me?" Dwight asked.

"Nothing sweetie. Don't worry about it. Your father just had a long day today. Isn't that right dear? She shot him a cold glare. The same warning a mother bear would give if you stood too close to her cubs.

Dwight's dad shrunk in his seat. He rubbed the rim of his steering wheel. His hands fidgeting with stress.

"Yes dear." He signed his declaration of defeat. The conversation was over.

The rest of the ride was uneventful and shrouded in silence. Dwight felt the words he wanted to say bounce up and down in his throat. He would open his mouth as if to say something and close it shortly after. He knew what he wanted to say but couldn't find the right words for it. The perfect words might not exist. How could they? How could he tell them what he's been through and not seem crazy?

The woods opened up and the small valley town greeted them with open arms. Home. Finally. Left just as he remembered it, perfectly preserved in his memories.

Dwight pressed his face to the window like an excited child. All the old landmarks were there. All the nostalgic places where he spent his childhood were still here. The old corner store, the playground, and the high school-

High school. The name tasted sour. Dwight shook his head and focused on the good. He had the privilege to experience high school again. It was treat compared to… before. At least no one would be trying to kill him there. There's hope.

The high school sat on a large hill. The institution cast a dark shadow over the neighborhood, bleeding into the suburbs below. Large, imposing and practically imperial. The school served as a breeding ground anxiety and dread. The various factions fighting among themselves with those like Dwight caught in the crossfire. To say that it wasn't fun would be an understatement worthy of an award.

Dwight's smile grew as they passed the horrid establishment and the small little homes emerged with their cute cut lawns. Small, neatly put together boxes all painted in bright primary colors that caught the eye. Things were different however. Many houses had bars wielded to their windows and long chains snaking over their doorways. Shifting eyes peeking behind dark curtains, retreating into the safety of their home before Dwight could get a good look at them.

Missing posters matching those in Weeks clung to the wood poles of landlines. They weathered papers flying free after being torn down by the wind and rain. Dwight covered his eyes to them. He was afraid he'd see his own face on one of those papers or someone he knew.

At last they arrived at his house. Dwight didn't particularly like his house. There was nothing wrong with it of course. It had all the usually things that made it homey: a door, a roof, couple of walls. All that good stuff. It just had the unfortunate luck to be his house; his home. On the outside you wouldn't notice the difference from his house and the neighbor's, and that was the point. Nothing stood out.

Dwight didn't remember having his house match the iron bar craze that has swept through the neighborhood and he certainly didn't remember having to unlock three separate locks with three different keys to get inside his own house. His mother fumbled with the keys delicately as if they would shatter at a moment's notice.

"These are the only keys we have." His mother told him. "If you need to get in the house just call me and I'll unlock the door for you."

"Okay, mom."

"And if I'm not here -which I always am- but if I'm not then just knock three times and Derek will let you in."

"Okay, mo- wait! Who's Derek?"

Dwight's mother and father shot up at the question. They gave each other a quick worried look before returning their attention to unlocking the door. Dwight's father broke the awkward silence.

"We'll tell you when we get inside where it's safe." He glanced over his shoulder, looking down the street to make sure no one was watching them and then the trio rushed inside the iron clad house.

The inside was also nothing special. A few common chairs in the front, kitchen in the back and the bedrooms upstairs connected by a thin hallway branching off to the stairs. Dull, uninteresting, and nothing of importance, just as he remembered it.

Everything from the walls to the furniture was mundane. Plain, boring, uninspired made slightly nostalgic by trauma. The perfect summation of Dwight's entire life. The word "Average" tainted everything around him.

Dwight felt sudden a tidal wave of exhaustion crash into him. His knees became weak and wobbly. His head became light as a feather and his arms grew heavy. When was the last time he he saw a bed; his bed? It's been so long. The hospital wasn't exactly a weekend resort.

"So about Derek. Dwight you should know that we love you." Dwight's mother began.

Dwight's head was pounding.

"Love you so much, son." His dad chimed.

"And we missed you."

"Terribly missed you."

Dwight's eyelids grew heavy.

"And when we couldn't find you we-"

Dwight propped himself against the wall leaning up to the stairs. His father caught him before he had a chance to collapse on the floor.

"You must be exhausted after all you've been through. You need some rest son. We'll go and make some room for you." Dwight slowly nodded his head.

The thought of sleeping in his own bed gave him a second wind. He climbed the thin set of stairs. His parents rushing behind him but not pushing past him. He turned the corner to his room and to Dwight's surprise there was a small boy waiting in front of his bedroom door.

"Dwight! Wait!" His mother called but it was too late. Someone was waiting for Dwight upstairs.

The boy was small yet much more muscular than Dwight. His toned arms wrapped around a stitched together teddy bear of various fabrics with mismatching colors and patterns. The stuffed bear squished against his football themed pajamas.

"Mom, Dad? Where were you? Is someone visiting?" the kid asked in a voice like cotton.

The truth hit Dwight like a runaway truck. He turned to see his parents anxiously smiling at the bottom of the stairs. Dwight didn't have to say anything, they knew what they did: They replaced him.

* * *

Frank felt the rush of cold air slip through the holes in his mask. The air tasting fresh and the scent of pines flooded his nostrils. The dark fog faded away and he found himself above the treetops. He braced himself for the fall, pushing his arms out in front of him to take the brunt of the impact.

The branches snapped like brittle bones. The tree's limbs catching and releasing Frank over and over. A nest of birds were sleeping soundly until Frank came crashing down on their home. They flew off in a panic. Nothing remained of the nest but an explosion of twigs, leaves, and feathers.

Frank hit the ground hard and heard a crack. The smiling grimace flew from his face and landed somewhere in the dark. He felt something cold and wet on his back. He held his breath, checking himself to see if he'd broken anything only to feel the slime of an unfortunate egg on his back.

The disheveled birds gathered to the scene of the crime. Frank watched to two bigger birds look longingly at the crushed yellow puddle and then quickly fly off into the night without a second thought. Off to start again, Frank reckoned. The smallest one didn't run with mommy and daddy. He sat on his branch and watched Frank, not moving a muscle.

"You gonna do something?" Frank taunted, whipping the goo that clinged to his jacket. The yellow yoke hit the ground with a loud splat.

The chick stood his ground. Silent and defying. It watched and waited. Was that anger behind its eyes? Was it taunting him? Mocking him?

Frank's blood began to boil. That flying rodent thought it was better than him. It thought Frank couldn't do anything to it. It thought it was invincible.

"You little shit!" Frank gritted his teeth. He picked up a nearby rock and threw it with all his might.

The stone flew through the air like a bottle rocket, smacking the bird with a direct hit! The bird fell to the earth. From where he threw it, Frank heard the satisfying sound of tiny bones breaking. It rolled in the dirt, squawking for help. Frank walked over and crushed the malignant creature under his shoe. The crying cease and the woods and the silence returned.

Frank spit on the bird's body for good measure before dusting himself off. He surveyed the scene. His eyes cut through the darkness like a hot knife through butter. He spotted his mask face down in the dirt. He picked it up, wiping what little dirt that would part with the award winning smile. It glittered in the moonlight like a dirty pearl. The drawn on smile was covered in mud, blood and now some fresh dirt. The eyes holes were unobstructed and that was enough of him.

The mask, his mask, and in a way _their_ mask. The mask of the Legion. But the Legion wasn't here. It was just him. A one man Legion in name alone.

Frank felt a bitter empty around him. He wasn't use to being without his pets. They followed him around like love starved puppies, willing to do anything for him. They were an extension of himself and now they were gone.

_Who needs them? _Frank's thought. _It chose me! Not them. ME! I am the Legion! ME!_

Frank placed the mask over his face: This was his true face. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his knife. It was the knife he and Julie shared. Her warmth still clung to the grip.

Frank stared at his dirty reflection in the blade. The face of the Legion smiling back at him.

"I'll show them. I'll show them all. I'm just as worthy as best of them! It chose us!" The reflection told him.

Frank looked out through the forest. A sliver of road could be seen through the pines.

"You're damn right!"

Frank walked through the dark as if it were his own. Any mysterious noise the woods uttered did not phase him in the slightest. He knew that a much worse fate awaited him if he dare failed. Not even death would be an escape from _It_s wraith.

He stumbled onto the open road. It stretched for miles on either side. The pale moonlight illuminated the sun scorched street. Not a soul in sight, not a body to be found. He was on his own.

Frank slipped the mask into his jacket and tucked his knife into his pocket. If he was going to blend in he would have to look the part or at least not make it so obvious. He grimly giggled at the thought of walking into town wearing a mask and wielding a bloody knife. Next thing you know he'd be with _It_ again. What would he say? "Sorry, I fucked up back there. Maybe point me in the right direction next time?"

Frank snorted. As if. He was on his own, dropped in the middle of goddamn nowhere without even a hint to where his prey might be. Great, just great. Perfect even! Just what he needed to find someone. Not a single clue!

As if to prove him wrong, a piece of news paper flew in on the wind right in front of Frank. All he needed to see was that pathetic little face to know that it was important. He caught it before the wind could steal it away. He unraveled it, reading the bold headlines of newsprint.

**Teenage boy found after being missing for a whole year!** Frank read what was beneath the headline, past the trashy articles and simplistic ads.** Dwight Fairfield was found in the nearby town of Weeks, covered in cuts and bruises from head to toe. Reason for disappearance still unknown. Dwight was taken to Weeks Central Hospital and was released into the custody of his parents shortly after.**

"Weeks, huh?" Frank said to himself. A smile stretched across his face. " Guess that's good as any place to check. Now," Frank saw a glint of light in the corner of his eye. A small coin half buried in the side of the road. Frank picked up a small coin lying in the dirt. "Heads: I go left. Tails: I go right."

Frank slipped his thumb under the coin and flicked it up into the air. It glinted briefly in the moonlight before falling and bouncing on the pavement. Frank leaned down and saw the board face of first president staring back at him.

"Left it is. I'll be seeing you soon, Dwight." The prey's name tasted sour from the mere utterance. Frank tore the newspaper to ribbons and abandon them to the wind. The only piece he bothered to save was that sad little mugshot of Dwight. Frank took a good, long look at it.

"I'll have you dead in no time!" He growled.

Frank walked quietly down the lonesome road. The world around him was bathed in silver moonlight. For a moment he smiled, reminiscing of those lazy days spent with _them_. He quickly smothered his budding nostalgia. There's not point. He doesn't belong to this world anymore. Focus on the task at hand. Focus on the hunt, Frank!

Frank felt the fury burn within him. He was on a mission. He proved himself once before, he can do it again. He could feel Its wordless will burned into his brain. His mission at the forefront of his mind.

_Find the prey and bring him back!_

He looked up to the night sky. The moon in full bloom against the night sky. A lone wolf howled in the distance. Frank couldn't help but join in. He howled like an animal, announcing to the world that the hunt was still on!


	4. Chapter 4- Horrible History

Claudette nestled in the between the bamboo and prayed that the stalks would be enough to keep her hidden. The thing that hunted her had already claimed two others, despite Claudette's best efforts to stitch up their wounds. With each cut sewn, a new one would seemingly be split open moments later. This creature, this hunter could be everywhere at once. An ever present force for evil.

Suddenly the wind hissed. Claudette held her breath as invisible flakes of glass cracked and shattered in the night. Then the spirit revealed itself under the gaze of the blood moon.

It might have once been a young girl once, a long, long time ago. Its features were untouched by the passage of time. Its skin without a single wrinkle. Its hair luscious and free flowing up into the air. It must have been beautiful once, might have even been human. Now it was a vengeful spirit trapped in an endless tug of war between life and death.

What lit this vengeful fury? Did it bear the marks of betrayal? Claudette could only speculate. Its limbs sliced off, only held on together by corporal strings and bloody bandages. Daggers of broken glass was embedded into the cold blue skin. With each jagged motion came the painful crunch of glass. Its face twisted with pain, joy, anguish and sorrow. Each expression more pronounced than the last.

Claudette couldn't help but feel sorry for the pitiful creature. The storm of emotions raging through it. Its humanity thrown away only to serve their eldritch warden. She stuttered at the thought of herself suffering such a fate.

Without a doubt it became _Its_ avatar to hate. Pure, unfiltered hate set loose upon the realm with one goal: To hunt. Like all the rest, the killer has been honed to the hunt. Any semblance of personality, any thread that could reconnect that fallen humanity or didn't serve its purpose has been served. Claudette reminded herself no matter how they may appear, no matter how tragic their story, they don't deserve empathy. Not like they'll show her any.

The ghostly figure bent her head in unnatural positions. Its head bobbed in blunt directions like a stubborn stick shift. It hissed in frustration before it faded away with the howling wind. Its haunting vestige unwound as if it never existed. Claudette continued to hold her breath until the winds died down. Then the bamboo was still and silence fell upon her.

She emerged from her hiding spot and took a sigh of relief. She was thankful the hunter was elsewhere. _Its_ cruel creativity was unmatched by anything back home. She wanted nothing more than to discuss this thing with the others at the campfire, maybe together they could learn something about how to avoid it. Plan around its strange powers. First she'd have to get out first.

Claudette surveyed the scene. Through the dense fog she spotted a towering estate of chipped wood and shredded paper. There was nothing modern about the design. Such a construction was only seen in traditionalist eastern cultures. Shame really to see it is such a state, to have endured centuries of neglect. The garden surrounded the estate fought for every plank, every floorboard and crack. Slowly reclaiming what was there.

All of this was bathed in the light of the blood moon. The hateful bamboo sharpened to a razor's point, the walls festering with unrelenting mold. The wooden frame gnawed away by unseen, otherworldly parasites. It was as if the very estate itself was seething with rage.

Claudette knew time was short before she was discovered again. Next time she might not be so fortunate as to find a hiding spot. A beacon of light exploded in the distance. Another step towards freedom.

Claudette approached the crumbling estate. The floorboards moaned in protested of each step taken. Claudette kept her ears open for the hissing winds. The spirit could be anywhere, stalking anyone.

In the center of a room sat a small shrine and beside that was the elusive generator. The shrine held up a demonic mask with long hair flowing down each side. Two sheathes hung below it, proudly displaying a forgotten legacy. Upon closer inspection, Claudette realized one of them was missing. The lit incense filled her nostrils with a horrid scent of rotting fruit, only furthering the unpleasant presence of the shrine.

"Pay attention. Don't get distracted." A familiar voice reminded her."Everyone is counting on you to do your part."

Claudette turned to see Jake creeping into the room. He was breathing heavy. His forehead covered in nervous sweat. It looked like he ran a marathon. She let out a quiet chuckle.

"You sound like Dwight." She said.

"We don't have much time." Jake said in between breaths. "It'll be back any minute." He pointed to the generator. "Let's get back to business."

"Did it follow you?"

Jake shook his head. "I lost it around the killer's shack. Now come on! We only need this last gen done!"

She pulled her gaze from the frightening mask, blocking out the thoughts and theories of its purpose. There would be time for that at the campfire, not here, never here.

The two crouched next to the generator and went to work. The repair was simple and repetitive. Claudette could do it with her eyes closed if she cared to. Out of all of the unfathomable mechanics of this twisted game, this was strangely the simplest among them.

"Hey," Jake said in a tender tone. His eyes holding back a single tear. "I miss him too."

"Now who's distracted?" Claudette jest, to which Jake responded with a short lived laugh.

"But really, it's okay to miss him. We all do."

"I know." Claudette softly said.

"Meg and I have been wondering what you think happened to him. Seeing how you're always looking for that kinda stuff."

"You mean lore?" Claudette asked.

"Yea, lore stuff."

Claudette raised one eyebrow in suspicion. "Do you want my honest answer or…"

"Lay it on me." Jake challenged.

"Well, in that case. I think he's gone. Dwight slipped through a crack in the realm and is just gone. I mean it was a literal crack in reality. Do you know what are the chances of him ending up back in our reality, let alone in a place where he could get back home? He could have landed in the middle of the Pacific and drowned a day later; and that's if he's lucky!"

"Wow, I never thought of it like that." Jake replied. His face drooped before quickly hiding behind a stern facade.

"If he didn't throw himself into a bottomless void or whatever _It_ throws away any unwanted trash, then he might have ended up in another reality, another dimension or something else equally unthinkable. It's just a theory, but I believe Dwight is truly gone and he's never coming back."

The two sat in silence. A storm cloud hung over their heads. Dwight's never coming back. The idea terrified Claudette, but knew it was the most likely outcome. If she learned one thing being here, it would be that the universe doesn't care about you. Greater forces are at work and more often than not sweep you under the rug without a second thought.

The few moments later gen came to life. Light flooded the halls of the ancient estate. The sirens of the freedom sang to the heavens.

"We can finish this back at the camp! Come on, we got to go!" Jake said.

"You take the north gate. I'll get the other. If the killer catches one of us, the other could just run to the other gate."

Jake nodded and ran off into the fog towards the siren's call. Claudette felt overjoyed. She took a step outside before looking back to the crimson mask. _Just one more peak wouldn't hurt, right? Jake will be working on the gates right now._ She assured herself.

The mask could tell her the history of their hunter. It was clearly important to it with a set up like this. Knowledge was power and anything she could learn could be used against them. She was so certain, so certain that she would escape without a scratch that she didn't hear the whistling of the wind right before the sword ran through her back.

The blade felt colder than ice. Claudette's blood sent steam rising from the levitating steel. The blade, much like its wielder, was shattered and held together by mystical forces. The sword cut deeper than any physical blade could. There was something else seething from the stainless steel. The unquenchable thirst for revenge.

Her lifeless cadaver was thrown aside to the floor. The hunter screamed, hacking at the body with all its pent up fury. Slicing and dicing the body until it had its fill.

In her last moments of consciousness, Claudette saw the spirit gaze at the shrine. Tears flowing freely down its cheeks and onto the floor. The being tried to say something, to force out a single word caught in its throat only to come out as a tearful wail.

It lashed out its wrists and the shattered sword formed in its hand. The broken blade slashed and crashed into the demonic mask, shattering it to pieces. Claudette will never know what turned this once happy girl into a cold blooded spirit, but whatever it was to give this raving creature conniptions, it was something or someone close to it. So close they can cut out your heart.

* * *

"Wait-"

"Dwight, this is your brother Derek. Derek, this is your older stepbrother Dwight. We told you about him, remember?"

"Brother?" Dwight couldn't wrap his head around the word. He'd been gone for little over a year. In that time his family saw fit to move to the next model and leave him the dust. All this time he'd been struggling, surviving for them and they moved on?

The boy slowly approached him. He was half Dwight's height, his head reaching barely above Dwight's hip. He looked up to him with soft boiled eyes. A smile stretched across his face.

"You're Dwight!?" The child's voice was dripping with awe and admiration, all of which gave Dwight the impression that he was apart of some cruel prank.

Derek ran up to Dwight and hesitated before giving him a back breaking hug. Dwight squirmed under his iron grip. Part of him braced himself for a hook to be driven into his ribs.

"Get off! Get off! Get off!" He screamed. Dwight hastily dusted himself off, lashing out his arms in an pointless attempt to protect himself. His mother and father raced up the stairs to the poor boy's side. "Don't touch me!" He cried.

Dwight's parents took a step back from their son, giving him some room to breath. Derek's face compiled a look of embarrassment mixed with a touch of regret. He reached out his hand to comfort Dwight, than thought better and pulled it away.

"I'm so sorry! I just heard so much about you and wanted to meet you, but Mom said you were gone. But now you're here! You're back! And we can-"

Derek's words melted into background fluff. Dwight's brain going into overdrive. The kid was speaking a thousand words a minute. Everything was going by so fast. How much has changed in the past hour alone? Sleep nagged at him, telling Dwight that it was time to finally slow down and rest.

"I just need some sleep." Dwight muttered as pushed past Derek in the midst of his ramblings. "I just want to be in my own room right now."

He wrapped his fingers around the cold brace of the doorknob. It's been so long since he had any real sleep. He was ready. Dwight opened the door and stepped inside.

Reality slapped him in face. Nothing was as he remembered it. Dwight saw what remained of his mutilated room. His room was plane and was frankly boring, and Dwight was okay with that. Everything had its own little place. He kept his shirts in his dresser, his pens in a little cup and his bed by the window. That was it. No fancy wallpaper or posters or elaborate decorations. Now sports posters hung on the repainted walls. All the furniture was either rearranged or missing entirely. Everything that made it Dwight's room was gone. This was no longer his room, it was the boy's.

Dwight's heart ached. Not only did they replace him, but they gave what little he had away. This was his domain, the one thing in the world that he could call his own and they gave it away. The shirts in the dresser were not his usually white office shirts and his pen cup was missing altogether. Was this even his old house anymore? What else did they see fit to mutate while he was gone?

One thing stood out however. The one thing he recognized as his remained and it made him sick to his stomach. The bright green jersey was hung in a glass display. The name Fairfield printed proudly above the number 00. It reeked of failure. It drudged up the old, forgotten memories of regret that Dwight hoped to keep buried.

"See I kept your old jersey? Yea, when I get older, I'm going to try for the high school football team! Just like you!" Derek oddly cheered.

Dwight remembered the jersey clear as day and the awful memories that came with it. Dwight wasn't much of a team player back than. He mostly kept to himself and got on with the day to day grind of high school. But in the back of his mind he wanted to be so much more. He saw how the football players and the basketball team brought in trophy after trophy. All the students cheering their name, throwing parties and having a great time. Dwight however was never invited, never given the chance to be one of the cool kids so one day he decided to change all that.

It was a day like any other. Dwight signed up for football tryouts. He remembered lining up with the other kids in the school gymnasium when they handed out the jerseys. The coach barked at them to put them on, see how they fit. Dwight's jersey was a couple sizes to big for him, even with the shoulder pads stuffed underneath it. That was the first sign that something would go terribly wrong.

First up were basic drills. Dwight was tasked to running back and forth between a line of cones while holding the football. At the sharp shriek of the whistle Dwight ran forth and immediately tripped over the first cone causing him to fall face first onto the floor.

The next drill was a simply pass. Dwight ran out onto the court while his partner threw the ball to him. It soared through the air at breakneck speeds. It was fast, too fast! It was heading straight for him like a bullet! He held up his hands to protect his helmeted face and the ball bounced harmlessly off his elbows.

Despite his poor athletic display, Dwight was confident he could turn this all around. After all, he'd seen kids much smaller than him get on the team. Surely he could get over the low bar set for him. He just needed to do well on the last drill and everyone would be amazed! There's be cheering, parties, and popularity. No more bullies, he'd be one of the cool kids. Dwight would look back on this day as the day he turned it all around!

The last drill was practice tackle. The coach rolled up a few dummies and ordered everyone to charge at it with all their might. This was it. This was his moment. Dwight braced himself and when the coach blew his whistle he tackled the dummy with everything he had. Every muscle working together to knock into the stuffed foam wrapped in cheap blue leather. Only for Dwight to be flung backwards and land on the floor again. The pads acted as a turtle shell, trapping Dwight on his back in an embarrassing position.

"God damn it Fairfield! I've seen school girls selling cookies pack a bigger punch than you! Everyone," The coach called everyone's attention, pointing squarely at Dwight. "I want you to look at this boy and remember not to be him! This is what you don't want to be if you want to make my team! You got that?"

The coach grabbed Dwight by his shoulders and hoisted him up to his feet.

"Son, hit the showers! You're done here! I didn't expect to decline a single student here, but you've proved me wrong! You made a liar out of me! Now get out of here!" The coach screamed, bits of spit flying into Dwight's face.

After that he tried for the basketball team, but after hearing what happened with the football tryouts, the team didn't even look at him. Disheartened, Dwight went to get a job to make a little money on the side and became a delivery boy at the PizzaWhat. And the rest is history.

All those memories came flooding back to him. The shame, the embarrassment. Dwight wanted to tear the jersey off the wall. It was a monument to what he aspired to be, what he failed to be. Why this kid wanted to frame it was beyond him. Strange how Derek held a sparkle in his eyes when he gazed upon it, like it belonged to someone important.

Dwight didn't say a word. It's been a long couple of hours. The world was spinning so fast around him that he couldn't see straight. He escaped, he went to a hospital and now he'd just come home to find that the family he knew had changed all without him. Dwight just wanted some rest, sometime to let everything slow down and settle.

He climbed into the bed tucked next to the window.

"Um… That's… um... my bed." Derek said.

"Let him have it honey. He's been through a lot." Dwight's mother began leading Derek out of the room. "Dwight needs some rest for now. How about we go work on what we're having for dinner."

"Can we have fish sticks?"

"Of course, sweetie. How many would you like?"

Dwight stopped paying attention to the conversation. He was wrapped up in the soft, warm blankets of home. The pillow gently cradled his head off into wondrous, dreamless sleep. Nothing but pure concentrated rest. A quiet, gentle dark shrouded his vision as his consciousness drifted away.

* * *

"Welcome to Weeks!" The cheery sign read. "Enjoy your stay!" Below it was the label of the population. The original number hastily scratched off and replaced with a new one beside it that was also eventually removed in favor of a much more pitiful number. At the end of the lineage of scratch marks sat the untouched remainder of the population: A measly 47.

Frank looked out to what remained of the ruin town. It was foreign yet familiar. Empty shells either wondering the streets or stood as nostalgic monuments of the past. The air was thick with dread. The sun itself dimmed as Frank took his first step into this cursed place.

It bared the mark of the thing that chose him. The cold winds flaking off missing posters like dead skin. The shadow of a once thriving community now laid bare. The very earth beneath his feet stink of desperation and hopelessness. He smiled. It was his home away from home.

Frank strode down what appeared to be the main street that lead to the heart of the rural town. He eyed every one that passed him by. None of them were who he was looking for. He remained vigilant however. His gut told him that he was here. Someone will know where he went.

The town wasn't that big. What remained was a concentrated community of a handful of buildings: The scrapyard, a hospital, a lackluster police station, a few residential homes that must be packed to the brim with squatters, and an orphanage. Frank glared at the orphanage. A place for the unwanted, a place made for him.

He turned his back to the dilapidated building. No time for distractions. He told himself. Need to find this Fairfield twerp.

And there it was. Words drifted on that same breeze that guided him on this path. They wormed into his ear and dug deep into his skull.

"Did you hear about that Fairfield feller? They say he showed up near dead at old scrapyard."

Frank turned to the orphanage, cursing under his breath that he would need to go in there. Not exactly a place that brings back warm memories. The outside wasn't much better than any other building in Weeks. Broken boards, rusty iron and shattered glass joined together to make this monument of misery.

Inside was almost completely empty, anything that wasn't nailed down was taken or discarded. A couple talking among themselves in the corner of the room, a short fat man and a lanky, shriveled woman. They were old. They're clothes were ragged and worn. Bug bites covered every inch of the woman's skin while the short bastard's beard was crawling with lice and other ungodly parasites.

"Excuse me?" Frank flashed his wolfish smile. "Did you say Fairfield?"

The ghoulish couple looked bewildered as if he just appeared out of thin air.

"Yea, I did. What's it to you?" The old man spat.

Frank closed the door behind him. "I'm actually looking for him. See we have unfinished business and-"

The woman scratched a swollen lymph node on her neck sparticly. Her face twisted from the pain. Her eyes widened as if she'd seen a ghost.

"We don't want nothing to do with ya! Leave us alone, kid!"

"I'm not a kid." Frank said through gritted teeth. "And I just want to find-"

The white knight stood in front of his lady friend. "Didn't you hear her, boy? She said get lost! You don't belong in this town, boy! No one does!"

Frank buried his fingers into the palm of his hand. His nails digging into his skin. His knuckles whitened from the intensity of the grip. The chains of restraint loosened enough for the beast to bare his fangs.

"I'll ask again, nicely one last time. Where. is. Fairfield?" Frank relaxed his hand. His fingers settled into a jagged grip, ready to lash out at a moment's notice. In fact, they were inching to dig into the rude bitch's skin.

The fat man puffed out his already bloated chest.

"You think I'm scared of you punk? I've seen things that you wouldn't believe! You don't scare me!"

Frank leaned over the red faced manlit. He raised his fist before throwing it back down to his side.

"You're not better than me!" Frank grumbled.

"Then why you shaking little man?" The woman asked, reaching into her torn up purse and pulling out a just as dirty cigarette. It looks like she found it in a wet puddle on the sidewalk. "You scared? You should be!"

Frank looked down at his trembling hands. What would he have to be scared about? These two? They were trailer trash at best! He had nothing to be afraid of!

"I'm not scared of anyone!" Frank growled, struggling to control the beast that scratched at the bars. Everyone doubted him. Everyone always doubted him!

"This town is doomed and you best turn around and look for your buddy elsewhere. Best for everyone that you leave and never come back!" The old man ranted.

"Yea, we ain't telling you nothing!" The old woman puffed.

Frank lunged out, seizing the short man by his pudgy neck. He squeezed the man's windpipe like it was a stress ball.

"Where is he?" Frank screamed in the man as it turned a darker shade of purple. He was done with subtlety. Why be subtle when you can cut to the heart of the problem? "Where is Fairfield?"

The fat man waved his short little arms in Frank's general direction, clawing helplessly at the air. The power Frank held over him gave him a rush like nothing else. This pathetic weakling's life was in his hands. Every moment after this point would be owed to him and him alone. Every thought and every breath would belong to Frank! Nobody else! Just Frank, baby! Frank Morrison's the name and you will never forget it!

"Get off him!" The lanky woman lashed back. She swung her knee into Frank's chin. His teeth clamped down with a meaty crunch, nearly missing his tongue by a measly inch. Frank reeled back in pain. He tasted the blood trickling down his throat. His blood.

The fat man gasped for air. His dark face returning to its usual shade of red. He crawled back on the ground until his back hit a wall.

"Jesus Christ! This kid is crazy!"

"Let's get out of here!" The lady tried to pull the fat man up to his feet, but the human bowling ball proved too much for her.

"Crazy? I'll show you crazy!" Frank whipped out his knife from his pocket. "You want to see something crazy!"

Frank didn't even realized he was wearing the mask. He charged at the helpless couple. The woman blocked her face with her frail, bug bitten arms. Frank drove the knife into her forearm. She screamed a horrible scream that echoed off the crumbling walls.

"Last time: WHERE IS FAIRFIELD?" Frank roared.

"He was in the hospital!" The fat man cried. "That damn kid was in the hospital before he skipped town as any sane person would!"

Frank turned to the old man, pushing himself off of the woman. He pulled his knife from its fleshy sheathe, wiping the blood off his jacket sleeve. Frank allowed the tip of the knife to slide lightly across the man's neck. A small, hairline cut began to ooze.

"If you're lying to me…"

"That's all I know, I swear! He was last seen at the hospital. He would have to sign some kinda form before he left! They'll know where he went!"

"Good to know."

"So… so you're going to let me go?" The man whimpered hopefully.

Hope sparkled in his eyes. The sight made Frank sick to his stomach. Every fiber of his being told him to extinguish it, to carve him open like a thanksgiving turkey. That's what_ It_ wanted.

Frank pressed the dirty blade against the man's throat. He wanted this. He wanted to do it so badly. He wanted his first kill. The first time didn't count. They helped him finish it off. No, this was his and his alone.

Frank could never forget the Legion's first kill. He and the gang were robbing some store or something like that. Seemed so long ago. It would have been simple, run in, grab the cash, maybe a little vandalism for fun and bail. Simple, easy, a cake walk but this janitor that got too brave for his britches and grabbed… her.

She was his everything. It was her that helped form the Legion in the first place. The Legion wouldn't exist without her and Frank owed her everything for that. So when that cleaner creep laid his hands on her, something dark awoken inside Frank. Something that drove him to cross that final line. The last taboo that the Legion has never broken.

He remembers the rush of driving his knife, the one he and Julie shared, into the cleaner's back. The warm blood splashing on his fingers. Even the smell was something savory.

"Finish him!" he ordered as his team stared at him shell-shocked.

Joey was the first to listen. He grabbed the knife and jammed it into the bleeding man's ribs. Susie was crying and whining. She begged for them to stop.

"Frank, we can't do this! We have to call an ambulance!"

Frank was on the verge of slapping her.

"We're not calling anybody! We have to finish what we started. Now grab the knife!" Frank yelled as loud as he could, hoping that the others won't see his own hands trembling.

Julie closed her eyes and stabbed the janitor in his chest, then she handed it to Susie.

"Frank please, we can still fix this!" tears dripping beneath her mask.

Frank drew her hands with his own and drove the knife deep into the man's throat. The rest was simple. Joey was the only one with a car, so they stashed the body and drove up to their favorite hangout. When they were in the middle of burying the body is when _It _called him. And the rest was history.

Frank tore himself away from the crying manchild in the corner. Pathetic, acting like he's never been stabbed before. He wouldn't have lasted a day in Frank's shoes. Blood flowed feeling down one of the man's many chins.

"Come on Frank. You can do this. You got this!" He hyped himself up. His hands trembling as he gripped the bloody handle of his knife. he stood up and headed for the exit, but not before turning around and pointed his knife to stranger.

"Don't make me come back."

It would have been cleaner if the other's were here. He'd never take a hard knock to the chin if they were watching his back. But he assured himself that he didn't need them. Once again, It chose him and only him!

He wiped the bloody knife on the sides of his sleeve again and stashed it in his pocket. He nearly threw the door of its hinges when he kicked it open.

"Next stop: Hospital." He walked back out into the streets of Weeks, completely oblivious of the face he was wearing. Let them stare. It was his real face after all.

* * *

Dwight eyes flooded with moonlight. The silvery shine forced his eyes open and he was awake again. The night, the dark, Dwight clutched his blanket close to this chest. He quickly looked around the room, trying to recall where he was in the realm. The jersey above his head reminded him that he was in the real world.

Or was he?

Dwight slinked off the bed. His eyes, so adjusted to the darkness, colored the room in a shade of blue. He looked around, he was alone. The walls didn't look aged or bent out of shape. No cracked glass or moldy spores. Everything was brand new or at least kept cleaner than anything found in that nightmare. Still, that could all be faked easily.

How could he know that this wasn't a trick? _It_ could shape the world around it. _It_ shaped the monsters in the fog, the dark servants that hunted them without end. Would it be a stretch to believe that all this was fabricated, ripped straight from his mind? Nothing, not even your own memories were sacred in that place. Nothing at all.

Wracked with paranoia, There was only one way to find out if this was real or not. Dwight felt his way along the side of the bed to the corner of the room. Wedged in the corner was a broken piece of wall lovingly tucked in its rightful spot as if nothing ever happened. A blanket of dust held it in place. _Good, no one has been here since I left._ Dwight thought.

He pried open the corner quietly. Dust spilled out onto the floor. Dwight held his breath to not breath it in. No need to wake up everyone else in the house or alert whatever lurked in the dark.

Without the corner, a small hole in the wall revealed itself and there, tucked away from the world for almost a year was a small little notebook no bigger than Dwight's palm. The cover was blue and stuffed to the brim with doodles and drawings of a much younger Dwight.

"It's still here." Dwight held his diary in his hands. His small, secret friend to share all his troubles with when no one else would listen. He hadn't thought about it in years. He never needed it. He had his friends to help him. He had his friends to share the burden of embarrassment and secrets. In the trails all things were made trivial and the worse you'd get from revealing a dark and terrible secret, like the time you almost threw up on your crush in fifth grade, would be a playful chuckle. He opened the page to the latest entry.

_"Tonight, the boss is taking us on a team building exercise. Why does it have to be in the woods? We can't bond somewhere less terrifying? Doesn't he know how many people go missing in this town? And he wants to go in the woods! I have to go or I'll risk losing my job. The others already don't like me, I need to make a good impression while I still can."_

"_I wished they liked me. My boss gets along with everyone else but me. Why? I try my best! Isn't that what matters? Sure I mess up a lot on the deliveries and once or twice I burnt a pizza but I try! Tonight is going to be terrible. Before it gets dark I'll sneak back home. I got a test I still haven't studied for. This week can't get any worse."_

"Yes it could." Dwight whispered to the pages. "It got a lot worse."

This was real. No one but Dwight could write words so utterly pathetic. Dwight couldn't stand the sense of whining he gave the passage. He was tempted to tear the page out and burn it so no one else would ever discover it. If only he knew that a little team bonding would be the least of his worries.

"Whatcha reading?" Dwight snapped the book shut with a thunderous clap. He threw himself around to see Derek watching him behind the bedroom door.

"Nothing! It's nothing!" Dwight shoved the diary back in its little hidey hole and placed the corner back in its place.

"Didn't look like nothing? Oh! Is it a secret?" Derek crouched beside Dwight. His eyes dead fixed on the misplaced corner.

"Nothing is here! Nothing at all!"

"Are you sure? Looked like you were hiding something."

"I wasn't!" Dwight almost yelled.

Derek's eyes grew watery and his face turned red.

"I'm sorry. I'll leave you alone." Derek began to march out of the room.

"What are you doing here?" Dwight asked.

"I wanted to check up on you. Mom said you've been through something really bad, so I brought to protect you from nightmares." The child held up his 'Mr. Stitches'. The frankenstein monster of stuffed animals held together by lousy stitching and unconditional love.

"Well… I'm fine. There. Don't worry about me."

"Why would I worry about you?"

Dwight looked down at his scar ridden hands. He felt every cut crawl up and down his body. That empty space in his very being bobbing around without a purpose.

"No reason. Please, leave me alone kid. I… I need to be alone."

"Okay, I'll leave Mr. Stitches here for you just encase." Derek set the worn stuffed animal beside the bed and wormed out of the room, watching Dwight until he finally shut the door behind him.

Dwight turned his back to the little book and pulled a pen out from his shirt pocket. He put it to the innocent piece of paper. The blank page reflecting the blinding moonlight into his sensitive eyes. He had the words bottled up in his head. He'd been saving them for years. The most twisted, vile, and horrid words he'd been saving to describe the nightmare he lived through. He wanted to let it all out, to finally share the burden even if it was in a diary of all things.

But part of him wanted to hold it all in. The thought of his parents finding this and realizing what happened was too much to bare. They would blame themselves, parents always do. He couldn't do that them. He couldn't make them go through that.

What if they thought he was crazy? They'd sent them away. Send him to a horrible hospital with those lights and pale white walls that would serve to be a constant reminder of that… place. It goes back to his parents blaming themselves. They'll think they failed to protect him from something that you can't fight back. You can't fight _it_. You can only run and hide and pray it never finds you. Fighting _it_ was just as futile as fighting gravity.

Dwight gripped his head. The memories scratching from the inside of his skull. Dwight placed his pen to paper and wrote madly of all that he endured. Every cut, every hook, every regret came flooding to the page on a wave of black ink. In his own ocean of madness came islands of reprieve. He spoke of his friends and the fleeting joys they shared around a crackling campfire. Meg, Claudette, and Jake. They were others, but they were the first faces that endured the nightmare with him.

Dwight stopped at the terrifying thought that his closest friends were still at the mercy of It. Do they even know he escaped? Do they think he's dead, lost to the void that inches every closer with each demise?

Dwight scribbled madly on the page. He didn't bother to check the ravings he was writing. He just had to let it all out. He wrote and wrote and wrote until his pen ran dry, than he reached in his shirt pocket for another. Dwight was thankful that he rarely wrote in his diary, giving him ample space to describe the horrors in great detail. To wrote a terrible tome of hope and horror.

When he was done he had burned through all the pens in his breast pocket and just barely managed to condense all he witnessed to one book. He closed the diary shut, its cursed pages now bleeding ink, and hid it behind the small patch in the corner.

It was done. His confession signed and sealed away, hopefully to never be found. Dwight thought the weight would be lifted from his shoulders. He thought the burden would roll off of him, but it didn't. It was still there. That empty void in his chest was a constant reminder of that. No, the burden is only lightened with kindred spirit. A friend. And all of Dwight's friends were… somewhere else. Somewhere beyond description.

The night wore on and Dwight was wide awake. Every instinct firing off in his head. His ears listened for the faint crunch of leaves underfoot, his nose ever vigilant for the slight whiff of blood, and his eyes would not remove their gaze from the locked bedroom door nor the barred window flooded with moonlight.

Sleep had eluded him, Dwight realized as the sun peeked over the horizon and pushed back the night. He wiped the crust from his eyes and jumped when he heard a growl. His head whipped around the room only to realize that the source was his own stomach. He was hungry.

Food. Another thing he had nearly forgotten about. Dwight heard the commotion coming from the downstairs kitchen. A familial banter happening beneath his feet. Dwight opened the door to his room and walked downstairs. After rounding a corner he saw the loving display.

"Dwight!" His mother exclaimed. "You're just in time. Your father is making his world famous pancakes!"

"That's right, son!" His father cheered. A doopy smile spread across his face as he hinted to his cooking apron. It read "This might sound cheesy… But I think you're really grate!" With a cartoon of a happy cheese grater with his little swiss friend.

Thankfully his father's cooking abilities far surpassed his comedic value. The pancakes smelled delicious. The sound of the batter sizzling in the pan gave Dwight an odd feeling of satisfaction.

"Why don't you go seat at the table and I'll give you a stack!" Dwight's father offered. "I know just the way you like them to! The perfect welcome home meal!"

Dwight sat at the long end of the dinner table. A smile wooden table that stretched across the room. His mother and step sibling scooted up to join him. Dwight smiled as he received the first and biggest stack of pancakes. He ignored Derek's quick glances at a distance, waiting for some unknown sign.

Dwight didn't let that bother him. He gave himself this one moment. This one moment where he was home and that's all that mattered. He put on a mask for his family. A mask of a smiling son finally returned home.


	5. Chapter 5- Cowards

Nurse Belham tapped her finger impatiently on the aged wooden surface. She didn't much care for being sent to the front desk for the night. Nothing happens in this town. Only the regular junkie or miscreant come limping through here for a quick patch up before being released into the wild to do it all over again.

Belham's eyes followed the lone fin of the ceiling fan spinning round and round; ready to fly free at any moment. The naked bulb hung from a single string dragged the ugly green glow of the town inside. The unpolished floor tiles did little for the atmosphere, giving the hospital an derelict feeling that no respectable ward would dare have.

Belham found her leg bobbing in place. Was she really that bored? She often wondered about leaving Weeks for the next town over, or -if she had the available funds- the next country over. But something about the small town left an eerie impression that you couldn't escape from. Something insidious hung in the air. Something that could only be described as evil. An evil so vast that escape was pointless.

He reeked of it. The boy from the scrapyard, Dwight; He was drenched in that nameless evil leaving an invisible stain wherever he went. Everyone could see it: the doctors, the staff, and her all saw the dark shadow that followed him.

In a silent agreement they patched him up and let him go as fast as possible, not wanting that evil to corrupt their beloved town further; if such a thing was even possible. No, this place was dead. The few fools that remain were the dying breaths of a once great town.

Guilt gnawed at Belham's heart. She should have said something, given the boy some sort of warning, but she didn't. Something in her brain begged her not to, that maybe if she ignored it that it would simply go away. So, she put on the smiling face he needed to see and saw him out.

Belham reached under the front desk and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. She turned to check the time. The old clock was missing a few numbers and would often grow attached to a random minute making perfect time management impossible. It told her that her break was probably in three minutes or was three minutes ago. Nurses weren't supposed to smoke, but the hospital has fallen so far from health code standards that a little smoke was the least of their worries.

Belham didn't waste time pondering the matter of Dwight's disappearance. She lit her cigarette and took a drag. Whatever it was, was something far beyond her on the cosmic stage. A nameless director with with a malicious intent beyond comprehension. Belham should have been a poet. She at least believed she had a knack for it. She could wax on and on about the nameless evil.

Should couldn't remember exactly when the evil arrived at their doorstep. It simply was or wasn't there. No in between, no transition. It arrived out of nowhere and became a fact of life.

The disappearances began before she was born, back when the town had a bustling mine from that one nameless estate gladly forgotten. When the mines collapsed and those workers died it set the tone for what Weeks would become: A home to tragedy.

As if at the mere thought summoned it, the front doors flew open and a small dark silhouette stood in the frame. He was small but held a strong presence that forced you to look at him. The stranger's shadow crawled along the floor, swiping at her ankles. In the dull fluorescent light Belham saw a mask with a crudely painted smile over featureless white. The man in a mask emanated evil in invisible waves.

The scent of blood sucker punched the nurses nostrils. She was use to the smell, but this was something else, something much stronger. A scent stronger than any slaughter or butcher's shop put together. A third ingredient to the devilish cocktail that was the stranger.

Nurse Belham's chair fell right from under her. Her cigarette flying free from her lips. She hit the cracked marble floor with a thud. Her brain pounded in protest, bouncing back and forth in her skull. When she got up, the masked man was standing in front of her desk.

"Fairfield." he spat. Heavy breathing reverbing from the inside of the smiling grimace.

"What?" The nurse asked and regretted it instantly.

The masked man grabbed her by her collar and pulled out the dirty knife from his pocket. _Oh my god! Is that fresh blood? _He pulled her front half over the desk, spilling cups of pens and stacks of business cards to the floor.

"Fairfield!" he repeated louder. His voice trembling, trying not to crack. A little boy trying to deepen his voice to be a man. His knife was shaking in his hands. "Where is he?"

"Dwight? The boy from yesterday? He's gone! We let him go yesterday!" Belham said as fast as she could. Her words flowing like rapid river. She didn't know why the man wanted her former patient and she didn't care. She was face to face with evil.

The masked man clawed at his mask in frustration.

"Where? WHERE? Where did he go?" he screamed at the top of his lungs. It wasn't out of anger. Belham had seen her fair share of angry people, usually strapped to one of the hospitals medieval gurneys. No, there was fear in the boy's voice. Genuine fear. His words shaking like a patient with Parkinson's.

"Answer me!" He roared.

The commotion caught the attention of hospital security. Two fairly burly guards paid to handle the more intrusive patients rushed to the lobby. Their blue uniforms an unmistakable icon of their authority and their sidearms even more so.

Belham took the opportunity to run. She slipped past the masked man, her heart skipped a beat when her skin touched his tainted hoodie.

Belham's footsteps echoed down the hospital's halls, drowning out the yelling and screaming behind her. _You knew this would happen. Did you believe yourself to be an exception? You knew one day the evil would come for you as it has the others._

Belham ran through the harrowing halls. Past the barred cells containing the sick and insane. They felt it to. The evil has come.

An old man, who's beard reached the floor in messy gray locks, pressed his face against the bars. His eyes staring off in two different and distinct directions. He opened his toothless maw and howled like a wild beast. A high pitched wail that bounced off the walls. Other patients scratched against their cells and did the same. A sick symphony of suffering crying out for the nurse's demise.

Belham didn't stop running. She didn't stop running when she could no longer hear the screaming, and she kept running when she heard the gunshots in the lobby. She didn't stop, she couldn't stop. Against all odds she was certain that the man in the mask was still after her. An unstoppable force molded to take human form.

Belham turned the corner and pressed herself against the wall. She leaned around the corner and listened carefully. Silence. Nothing. Only the constant buzz of the lights overhead and her beating heart.

_Was he gone? Is it safe? Did the guards get him?_ Belham took a slow deep breath before turning the corner and-

The masked man tackled the nurse to the floor. Her back grind up against the dirt and grim. Forced this close, Belham could hear the boy's heart about to explode in his chest. He was just as terrified as she was.

"I can do this." He muttered to himself. "I can do this. I don't need them. I can do this myself!"

The masked man raised his knife high above his head. The dagger's point ready to rip and tear into its next victim. The knife plunged into her shoulder. Belham let out a blood curdling scream. He tore the blade from her shoulder and stabbed her again and again and again.

Skin split like paper and muscles torn like fabric. Nurse Belham raised her arms to shield herself from the relentless assault. The masked man was more than happy to add a few more cuts to his growing collection.

She saw the darkness in his eyes. Behind that mask was someone or something truly primordial. Something as old as the universe itself. It had its claws in him, but not completely. Wrapped around his will in a vice grip shackled to a post. How else could he hold back the ravenous fiery just shy of killing her?

Belham laid there, in a pool of her own blood. The masked man was muttering words of encouragement as if talking to someone else in the room. He raised his knife one last time for the killing blow. His hands began shaking. His chest rose and fell like a jackhammer. And in that moment of hesitation Belham closed her eyes and slipped away.

* * *

Dwight sat with his back straight and his hands over his knees. He had the house all to himself. Derek was off at school, his father was at his office job and his mother was buying all of Dwight's favorite foods from the store. The house was silent and still. It was time to breath.

He did a quick run down of the rest of the house while everyone was away. He didn't want anymore surprises. Thankfully nothing went under such a dramatic transformation as his room did. A little furniture rearranged here, a new color on the walls there, but for the most part it was the same old house, same old home. Dwight silently debated whether this was for better or for worse. Old memories lingered in the details set to remind him of troubled times, yet the familiarity was a comfort from the horror he ran from.

That only _he_ ran from. Only _he_ successfully ran from. Everyone else was…

Dwight refused the thought to form in his mind. An absolute truth that he didn't wish to face. He forced his attention back the house. There were some pictures of his parents with Derek. Dusted and frame on shelves, counters and walls. Some were of natural settings like sports games, landmarks and the forest-

No, no don't think about that. Don't think about that at all! Think about what? Exactly! So don't think about it! House. House. Nothing but a house on a pleasant suburb street.

TV. TV would be the perfect distraction. There's a million things to watch on TV. At least one has to keep him preoccupied.

Dwight walked into the modest living room. Consisting of a small box TV, a worn coffee table and a three person couch. The walls ooze sentimental knick knacks on full display. There was an air of nostalgia that tasted bitter in Dwight's mouth.

Dwight sank into the cushion when he took a seat on the couch. The old furniture had slight holes and tears poorly sewn together. Stuffing oozed from the bar of strings and fiber.

Dwight turned on the TV. After the short buzz of static there was a woman holding a microphone somewhere in town.

"At this rate, the number of missing persons cases have piled up at the sheriff's office since yesterday. Reports are saying that most of the alleged victims have been students of the local high school, leaving parents demanding efforts be made to increase security. Witness say that-"

The screen when to black and Dwight set the remote down on the coffee table. So, the TV is off the table. Nothing could on TV anyway. Bad for the brain as most would say. What else could he do to distance himself from the haunting visions.

Dwight's gaze wandered to the pictures of Derek. The adopted son was at a sports game of some sort, holding a big golden trophy that Dwight recognized in his room. He was surrounded by his teammates in matching jerseys. They worked together to achieve a goal and without them, Derek would have surely lost.

A team, a family survived together. Friends. Dwight pulled out his phone. The screen cracked due to the wear and tear of the fog. Only now in the real world had he had a chance to charge it.

The idea was sound undercut with dread. Dwight punched in his passcode. The screen shining a harsh bright light into his eyes that even the sunglasses had trouble blocking out.

He dragged the search bar into frame. The blank rectangle asking "Who first?" Dwight wondered the same.

Dwight knew about where his friends came from. They're backstory and history were nothing new to him. It was what happened afterwards that tickled his interest. What became of their friends and families? Was there anything for them to go back to? The spark of hope inside him told him that when he sees his friends again, they'd want to be caught up on what happens.

His fingers rested on the sides of the screen. Dwight wanted more than anything to type out his friends' names, see who they were before the fog, maybe go to their loved ones and tell them the truth.

No, he couldn't do that for the same reasons he couldn't confess to his own parents. It would only serve to distraught them and give him a one way ticket to the loony bin. Still, it couldn't hurt to satisfy his own curious craving.

His finger on the enter key, shaking. The weight of responsibly heavy on his shoulders. What if he doesn't like what he sees? What if he learns too much and than couldn't stop himself from seeing the ghosts of the past? Even worse, what if he learned that all this time they had lied to him? When they first met, when they first poured their hearts out to each other as a symbol of trust and friendship that they had lied to him? And after seemingly years in the fog that the lie became the foundation of their survival. A foundation that was the one thing holding them together.

No, that was crazy? They wouldn't lie. Why would they? They've been through so much together that they were a family. A bond held them together that not even _It_ could break apart!

But what if they had? Jake, Meg, Claudette, what if they lied to him since the beginning? They wouldn't think to spend so much time with a loser like him. Little did they know that they would spend a lifetime running, hiding, and dying in the fog. Revealing the lie would taint the few good memories they shared. Of times where they would gather around the campfire and sing songs. How they would share their hopes and dreams under a starless sky. They comforted each other in their darkest moments and -for a brief second- they could forget where they were and pretend to be home.

Dwight couldn't bare to even risk it. He pulled back and turned away. Unable to bear the burden of thought,

They wouldn't lie. No way. They would never. Not to him, not in the fog.

Dwight got up from the sale marshmallow that was the couch. A perfect imprint of his backside etched in the aged leather.

The others were his friends, his best friends! They wouldn't lie, but some hidden insecurity whispered that they did. Something that told him that Dwight could never have friends without there being some sort of catch.

Dwight wasn't the most popular kid growing up. He'd spent countless hours hiding in plain sight, a ghost in the crowd. He was use to distant gazes of passers by. No one noticed him and he like it that way. Maybe that was his weakness when he was dragged into the woods? No one noticed until it was too late.

But _they_ saved him in the fog. _They_ helped him off bloody hooks and tangled wires. His friends saved him when he couldn't save himself and somehow they made him feel life was worth living, even in the fog.

Dwight walked upstairs to his distorted bedroom plastered with someone else's happy memories. He collapsed on his bed in bitter defeat.

_They're all gone._ He told himself. _They were gone for good. There was only him now. You're alone. Everything from that place was gone and was never coming back._

The sun was beginning to set. Dwight pulled the sheets over his head and willed himself to rest. He didn't need another reminder of the horror behind him. Content that it was better left tucked away as an unpleasant memory.

* * *

Frank charged through the jagged branches and sharp underbrush. He made a conscience effort to stay away from the road. They'd be looking for him. For what he did, there was no question that they'd be looking for him.

He messed up. Fuck, he messed up! He should have finished her off when he had the chance!

Frank, stilling clutching the dripping knife in his hand, held his wrist to his bleeding shoulder. That overpaid mall cop grazed him. The bullet just missing the bone and tunneling straight through him. In any other circumstance, he'd consider himself lucky.

A wave of numbness washed over his shoulder. Beneath the skin was a sharp burning sensation as though Frank was being pricked with tiny hot daggers, but none of them stabbing him.

Why couldn't he do it? Frank had her right where he wanted her. Helpless, defenseless, she was at his mercy and he couldn't do it! Frank cursed his own cowardice.

_They could have done it. If they were here none of this would have happened. That couple in the orphanage or those guards would have been taken care of if the others were here._

But they're not. Frank was on his own. He can't afford to bring attention like that on him again. All that turmoil for a simple point in the right direction. Fairfield might not even be in the next town or he might have driven halfway across the state or even the country!

Frank was no stranger to trouble. He's spent more time in detention than he did the classroom; hence the detention. At school he'd gotten in countless brawls, pulled numerous pranks and practical jokes at others' expense, but he never got as far as he did when he had his Legion.

Frank was tired and out of breath. He slumped up against a rotting tree that had the perfect slope to rest on. From how far he ran, he hoped he was at least a quarter of the way there. If not, at least beyond the reach of Weeks' finest. Susie would have had that figured out. She was good with nerd stuff. Joey could have help fend off the guards while he went for the nurse and would have taken the bullet for Frank. And Julie… Julie would keep Frank running until they found Fairfield. Her presence motivator enough to keep Frank going. She would never let them stop until their prey was whimpering and bleeding alone in a small secluded alley.

_But they're not here to help you. You can't use them as a crutch. You're on your own, just the way you like it, right?_

A terrible thought slithered in his mind and wormed its way to the center. _It_ had his Legion. Susie, Joey, and most of all Julie. Julie… In the claws of _It_… The idea was almost too much to bare.

It was at Its whims that Frank was given a second chance. He was told to hunt, to redeem himself as worthy. Were the others so lucky? Were they given a chance?

_They could be dead. They could be dying and it's all your fault._

"They shouldn't have followed me!" Frank cursed as he struggled to catch his breath. "They should have known better than to follow me in that fucking fog!"

_But they did. They followed you to a realm beyond imagination and now their fate is bound to yours'._

Then the thought arise of failure. Not only sealing his fate, but theirs as well. His -dare he say it?- friends would be lost in that endless fog. The things that lurk within will turn on them. Hunt them for sport like those weaklings like Fairfield!

Frank unrolled his sleeve. Wrapped around his wrist was a bracelet beaded in four colored strings threaded in between four beads. Each bead had a single letter printed on it, spelling out F, J, S, J. Frank cradled the friendship bracelet close to his heart. Behind the blood he could smell a faint whiff of Julie's sweet perfume tickle his nostrils.

Julie. The small town girl that saw him for what he could be. Frank still remembers the day they first met. He getting the lay of that terrible mountain town he was stuck in. He was already thinking about how to escape it when he first laid eyes on her.

No one noticed him. He was living specter among the townsfolk, but she saw him. She saw him as many things. A way out of the town she was condemned to, a mysterious stranger she had to get to know better, and someone who knew that she could be so much more than what others saw her as. This made Julie the one person he wanted to impress. He slicked back his hair, popped a mint in his mouth and said hello. The rest was history, bloody fun history.

No! Frank refused to accept that fate! Fairfield will be the prey, not them! The Legion will live on! Frank balled up his free hand into a fist and pounded it against the rotting oak. The surge of adrenaline running through him, threw him to his feet. Splinters embedded in his knuckles, molding and festering. It's fine, he'll deal with it later. He has more important matters to deal with.

The moon crept above the trees as the sun slept. He would have to move. He wanted to put as much distance as he could from the town of Weeks. There was nothing for him there, nothing at all.

* * *

She woke up in the infirmary ward bandaged head to toe. The crowd of doctors breathing a sigh of relief. Belham was lucky to be alive.

The doctors had her hooked up to every machine available. Her bedside neighbors were the familiar boys in blue looking only slightly better off than she did. From the looks of it, one would think the three were attacked by a swarm of blenders. Cuts and stabs painted all over their bodies.

Belham struggled to stay away. Her eyes were heavy and she faded in and she struggled to remain in the waking world. Blood lost. Has to be blood lost with a minor concussion, she deduced by the throbbing pain in the back of her.

In the mist of the swarming doctors asking her a million questions at once were a few more officers. They held little notebooks with pens scribbling madly the descriptions given to them. Belham swore she could hear a dog barking outside in the front lobby. There would be a search for the man in the mask.

A cold breeze grazed her shoulder. A chill crawled up her spine. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw something move. No, no someone. Some people. A group of three closely knit teenagers were leaning up against the putrid green wall. One boy and two girls.

The boy standing closest to the door. One hand around his wrists and the other in a fist. He was slightly taller than the girls. His eyes painted over with dark ash on a brutish looking face. One of the girls had her hoodie pulled over her face while the other girl proudly showed off her pink dyed hair.

All of them staring directly at Belham with the same hunger as _him_. The heartbeat monitor spiked. The machine beeping like a runner in a marathon.

Belham tried to tell the doctors something, but they were lost in their own swarm of duties and questions that her words fell upon deaf ears. Belham reached out for one of the policemen and saw that they were already leaving the room with looks of satisfaction plastered on their face. They were focused on the adventurous hunt ahead, ignorant to the beasts behind them.

The pink haired girl walked up to her and bared her metal braced smile. Her gaze could cut glass. A slight twitch in her eye made her all the more unsettling. She turned back to the wall and waited.

The three waited there for the rest of the day. Belham couldn't tell how much time has passed. A mixture of morphine and fear loosened her grip on reality. A blink later and it was dark. The lights dimmed to accommodate the sleeping patients. The three were out of sight.

"Frank couldn't finish her? Are we sure he was here?" A deep voice whispered in the dark.

"If Frank was here, he would have cut her to ribbons! She just has a paper cut!" A scratchy, high pitched voice retorted.

There was a grunt in the shadow. A small sharp hiss of disapproval just out of view.

"Geez Julie, I'm just saying! Frank would have finished the job!"

"Stop bitchin, Susie!" The boy said. "We gotta know where to find Frank and she knows where!"

There was huff of agreement then the three emerged before her. Three masked grimaces stared back at the helpless nurse. One broken into pieces held together by twisted braces. Another a bandanna painted white with holes cut out for the eyes. Lastly was the marker on white, but instead of a crude smile there was a red X over the mouth.

The three inched closer, pushed by an invisible force like statues. The quiet one pulled a knife from her pocket -a twin to the masked man's- and stabbed at the nurse's cast. She hardly felt at thing. A small tendril of pain rain up her arm before disappearing entirely. The clear sign of indifference angered the masked woman. She pulled the knife free and stabbed again. Still, very little pain, but this time it was more pronounced, its presence was known but not unbareable.

Belham tried to scream for help when the boy pressed his hand over her mouth. She could smell the blood still fresh on his pitch black gloves. Blood and muck spilling out over her face and into her mouth. She gagged, huffing and heaving at the smell she'd long since grown sick of.

He looked to the pink girl and she brandished her own weapon; a broken ruler whittled to a point with compass needles taped to the sides.. She walked up to the IV drip at the nurse's bedside. Giving the bag a few good taps with her ruler.

"Morphine." She said. "Would be a shame if someone were to say... cause a leak?" Although she didn't see it, Belham could easily imagine the metal smile grinding behind that mask. The pink girl raised her ruler and stabbed the back. Precious medicine spilled onto the floor. Expensive medicine made useless by children.

The pink girl giggled madly. "She should be feeling it any moment now. Stab her again, Julie!"

The quiet one gave a subtle nod. She raised her blade high above her head before jamming it firmly into Belham's shoulder. The nurse's screamers rendered mute, muffled by the brute's hand. The blade scraping the bone.

"A few more inches to the right. Where the shoulder meets the collarbone. That's where you'll do the most damage." Susie pointed to the stitched together wound on the nurse's right shoulder.

The one called Julie aimed her knife as instructed and plunged the blade into nurse's flesh. She bobbed it from side to side, wedging the blade into her shoulder. The man leaned in real close. His breath stank of a cheap, sugary orange flavored drink.

"Where. Is. Frank?" He growled.

Nurse Belham shook her head and the boy lifted his hand from her face, still cupped encase she decides to scream.

"Please! I don't know who you're talking about? Just let me live!" She pleaded.

"She's lying! She knows where he is! He was just here!" Susie hissed.

Julie slammed her fist on top of Belham's shoulder. The pain shot down her arm and made it numb. There was a loud crack and then a deaf pop. The arm held desperately beneath the skin. The girl dislocated her arm from its socket with surprising strength given her size.

"I'm gonna ask one last time. Where is Frank! Man is a mask, just like ours?" The boy pointed to his own mask with one gloved finger. "The mask of the Legion?"

The white smiling grimace flashed before Belham's eyes. Blood splattering on the crudely drawn smile. The heavy breathing behind the mask and the inky shadow that followed him wherever he went. That was Frank.

"The town next over! He should be going to the town next over!"

"Why? Why would he go there?"

"I don't know! He kept asking about a patient we had here! Dwight Fairfield! He might be following him; I don't know! Just please don't hurt me! PLEASE!-"

The boy pressed his arm against her throat, muting her cries for help. He looks to the other two with a suspicious glare.

"You think she's telling the truth?"

"I'm not sure. Why would Frank be after this Fairfield dude?" Susie asked. "Doesn't seem like him to do that."

Julie wiped the bloody blade on her sleeve. A small crimson streak tattooed on her denim jacket. Belham watched as she scoured the room for evidence, any contradiction to confess that the nurse was lying. She walked back into the darkness, returning with a crumpled up newspaper smelling slightly of garbage.

The teenager unraveled the paper and printed on the front behind a used wad of gum was a black and white portrait of one Dwight Fairfield. The headlines read "**Teenage boy found after being missing for a whole year!" **

"Missing? Could he be from the fog?" Susie asked.

"He looks like prey." The boy added.

"And weak. Don't forget weak, Joey."

Joey gave a half chuckle. "Looks like one of the boys me and Frank would pound on for lunch money back at school!"

The trio collectively laughed at the pleasant memory of their leader. Their cheery fit stopped on a dime. A harsh silence fell over the room. The teenager's hungry eyes turned to the bed bound Belham, cornered and helpless.

Belham struggled to find the strength to speak. A river of blood spitting from her shoulder draping a warm blanket down her side. Her sterile white bed sheets stained crimson. Her fingers wrapped in a sticky glove of dried red grim. Her head full of feathers. Belham's thoughts scrambled with the amount of blood loss.

"You know where he's going. Please just let me go. I won't tell anyone you were here. I promise!"

The three masked figures turned to each other. Without a word they silently argued between each other on the next step. Their gaze shooting signals directly to their brains like some sort of human hive mind.

Susie griped her ruler till her knuckles burned white. Joey kept one hand around the other, holding himself back until a verdict has been reached. Julie was the hardest to read. She stood there in her shroud of silence. Her fingers dancing around the hunting knife in her hand.

The three nodded in unison. An agreement has been meant. Belham's heart pounding in her chest. Her clean hand drenched in clammy sweat. The nurse watched the trio head for the door. They were going to let her go. She was going to live to see another day!

Than Susie flicked off the lights. The neighboring patients cried and complained at the veil pulled over them. Belham held her breath, her eyes darting in the black suffocating her. She heard a twisted giggled like corkscrews being drilled into your ears.

The ruler slipped into her skin. Wooden splinters breaking off and burrowing into her flesh. Another knife ran through her gut, puncturing her stomach like a needle to a balloon. One last blade slipped between her ribs. Heavy breathing mere inches from her face. Belham could barely see the red X on her attacker's mask. She was closer than the others. She wanted this to be personal, a sick intimacy that the teenager desperately craved.

Nurse Belham dreamed of leaving the town of Weeks, to put the horrid history behind her and go work for a much better hospital, maybe finish her degree and become a doctor herself, but she never did. The evil she intimately knew could reach out its black tendrils and drag her back wherever she went. Something so inescapable as the passage of time. Something as inevitable as death.


	6. Chapter 6- The Pull

Dwight stayed huddled in his bed. His eyes sealed shut. His warm wad of blankets unable to stop his body from shivering. He wanted to hear the beep of the alarm more than anything. The beep telling him that the night was long gone and it was safe again. When he worked the courage to open his eyes again he wanted to only see the dawning sun.

_Beep beep. Beep beep. Beep beep._

The clock sang. Dwight took a calming breath, exhaling slowly through his nose. He bundled the sheets in his fists, holding on like a drowning man on a sinking ship. "You'll wake up and see the sun. You'll wake up and see the sun. You'll wake up and see the sun." He assured himself. "You'll wake up and see the…" Dwight's eyes flew open. The bedroom window painted a portrait he needed to see. "The sun."

The sun peeked over the horizon, hurling its golden rays through Dwight's window. Morning dew glinted off the leaves like gemstones. He'd seen it before, a couple times since his return and still he was awestruck by its majesty. He watched even as he's eyes burned. It's true what they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Dwight reached for his sunglasses and slid them onto his face. He marveled the morning dawn. Staring at the sun, eyes like pilot lights, sunken and dull in comparison. Another sleepless night over and done.

Dwight collapsed back onto the warmth of his bed. His heart pounding in his chest. He put one calm hand over his chest in an attempt to sooth the vital organ. He felt the blood racing beneath this fingertips. Countless red streams rushing beneath this skin.

He told himself that he was still here. That he hadn't been sucked back down the guttural void of the nightmare. He drew another breath, savoring the taste of freshly vacuumed carpet and warm pancakes. Dwight's mother has been cooking breakfast for a few days straight and the smell has purmiated the house, not that Dwight was complaining.

He flopped to his side. The bedroom door was slightly opened allowing the warm whiffs of the morning greet him. A scene with his family gathered around a small wooden table, plates full of pancakes and warm syrup waited for him at the bottom of the stairs. And he dreaded it.

There was nothing wrong with the scene itself, just the people in it. Dwight could feel a distance between everyone that they could never understand. His parents wore their smiles as flimsy rubber masks, pretending that the following year has never happened. Everyday it's "Morning son," this or "Hey sport," that. Every sad day, every painful memory they endured in his absent scrubbed away.

Derek's smile was the only genuine one in the house. Despite being kicked out of his room he still found time to show off his pearly whites. Guilt gnawed at Dwight's very being. Like his mere presence has robbed his step-sibling of something important. A life maybe? A full happy life with parents that loved you and only you unconditionally? Dwight couldn't help but think that he was inadvertently stealing that away from Derek.

"I wonder when I'll get my own room now that your back." He asked Dwight the other day. He spoke with such certainty that made Dwight envious. Certainty was something he has been estranged for the apparently year long nightmare. Hearing it now felt like cheating in the game he escaped from.

They had redecorated his bedroom to make it Dwight's. Painted the walls a calming blue, torn down the trophies and the photos and stuffed them to some hidden corner of the house. The signed jersey remained at Dwight's behest. Even now Derek gazed upon the cheap cloth with an undeserved reverence that melted away any content Dwight had.

The growl of his stomach told Dwight it was time to eat. He was slowly getting use to normal things. In the… _place_ he never had to eat, drink or general take care of himself outside of dodging flying hatchets and rusty blades. He never realized he had lost those common habits until now. Another thing that _It _stole from him. What terrified Dwight, was that he didn't even notice for the longest time.

What else could _It _have taken?

Dragging his feet across the carpet, Dwight walked downstairs to the kitchen. The smell of warm pancakes filled his nostrils and churned his stomach. His mother was standing over the stove wearing an apron that was too ugly to be anything other than a gift from Dwight's father.

"Dwight!" She exclaimed as if seeing him for the first time in years! "Good morning sweetie! How did you sleep?"

Her overly cheery nature has since overstayed its welcome. Dwight could see her lips twitch to force a smile. Her eyes two flashlights turned on bright. Her whole face was positively beaming, making Dwight squint and want to grab a second pair of sunglasses.

"I'm fine, mom." Dwight lied through his teeth. "Pancakes again?"

Dwight's mother nodded her head. "Just the way you like them dear!"

Dwight grabbed a plate and offered it to the self proclaimed chief. She scooped up the pancake and flopped it onto his plate.

"Your brother is sitting by the table. He's already taken out the syrup and orange juice." She turned her head. "Derek! Share the syrup with your brother!" She cheered.

"Yes mom!" Derek replied in a much quieter voice.

"That's good deary. Enjoy your pancakes son!"

Derek was sitting alone with his stack of syrup soaked flapjacks. He's seat was pushed to the far end of the table, far away from where their mother and father would be eating. His father waved him over.

"Right here, son! Come sit by your old man!" He called as he set his plate down on the old oak table.

Dwight sat down beside him. He tried not to look at the horrible forced smile. His ears winced every time the middle aged man spoke.

"Did you sleep well, sport? Have any good dreams?" he asked.

"No, I'm fine." Dwight said dryly.

Dwight couldn't find it in himself to break the picturesque scene. Compared to the place it was perfect. No one swinging from bloody hooks or crouched knee deep in dirt and mud. He was home, but it didn't feel like home.

Dwight was being pulled by an invisible string. The shock of leaving helped him ignore it, but lately he felt the draw of that _place_. It felt wrong to be here, like he didn't belong. An incoherent whisper telling him that being happy, being here will never be rightfully his. He belonged somewhere else.

"Good to hear! Say," his father leaned in close. "Your mother and I have been talking and we think it would be a good idea for you to go back to school soon."

"What?" Dwight almost fell out of his chair, catching himself just short of falling over. The bottle of syrup next to him fell over, oozing a puddle of dark amber in Dwight's plate.

"We knew you'd be excited!" His mother chirped from the kitchen.

"That's our Dwight! Ready to get back in action after his break! You have studies to keep up with! A lot of catching up to do!"

"Dad, you want me to go back there after-"

"After your break!" Dwight's father stuffed another mouthful of pancakes into his mouth. "You want to get back to work as soon as possible to catch up on your studies."

"Your father's right sweetie!" His mother chirped. "You don't want to fall behind, do you?"

"Could we talk about-" Dwight began before his father swallowed his meal and cut him off.

"Talk about your future? Of course! You're going to need a job for valuable work experience. You know they won't hire anybody with job experience. A young man such as yourself will need to start from the bottom and work your way up!"

"Oh sweetie, I bet everyone at your old job misses you! You should apply for your old job at the PizzaWhat!"

The PizzaWhat. The last place he went to before his "break"; as his parents put it. Dwight was shaking just thinking about it. The dark sky, the long stretching branches, the smell of moonshine over the roaring campfire. One sip was enough to send Dwight tumbling into that nightmare. Blades cut through flesh, beads of blood soaks the wound, and the cries of fresh victims on the meat hook! An endless slaughter almost comical in its absurdity made reality. His reality.

"No!" Dwight suddenly screamed a blood curdling scream. He could taste the moonshine on his lips. He could see the darkness shrouding his vision and the claws of that terrible nameless thing drag him away into the fog shrouded trees. He fell back in his chair, banging his head on the dull smelling carpet.

His father jumped from his chair, his mother rushed from the kitchen still holding a pan of half cooked batter. Derek nearly fell out of his chair. He coughed up a small sip of milk he was in the middle of swallowing all over his pancakes.

All eyes were on him. The immense weight of expectation crushed Dwight further down into the floor as if to bury him. He pulled himself up. The sleeve around his arms fell back to reveal the grand collection of scars he earned in Its realm. His parents shied away, advertising their gaze to the table and the now syrup soaked pancakes clumped together in a soggy stack.

"I don't think I should focus on… a jobrightnowthankyou!" He threw his grenade of words and sealed his mouth shut. He wrapped his arms around himself and forced a slow steady breath against his panicked heart.

His mother hugged her trembling child. His father put his hand on his shoulder and Derek got up to stand beside him. Dwight flinched at their touch. It was too warm and compassionate to be real.

"Honey," his mother began "We know what you've been through. But we need you to get your life back on track. It's time to move on."

"Your mother is right, son. You can't dwell on this forever."

They're lying to him. They don't know a damn thing. They weren't there. They didn't have to leave their loved ones bleeding and dying at the hands of those _things_. They never felt the cold embrace of death or to be the plaything of _It_.

They clung desperately for a sense of normality. They want Dwight to swallow his pain and wear the same mask they do. Bury it so far down that they hope he forgets about. But he won't. _Its_ memory stained Dwight's brain as a permanent scar.

"I'm sorry. I can't." Dwight ran from the scene, up the stairs and closed his bedroom door behind him. He barricaded himself on to the door and waited. He waited for his family to come and plead for him to come out. He waited for his friends to knock on the door and tell him that they're okay. He waited for Meg to tell him to get ready for the killer's chase. He waited for Jake to tell him how to escape with a bear trap around you leg. He waited for Claudette to remind him of what plants treat burns and which treat cuts. He waited for the three of them to help him back up and assure him that they would escape together. He waited for the fog to roll him to remind Dwight that there is no escape.

* * *

"Holy shit! I'm lost!" Frank cursed to himself. "It's a straight line. One road from there," He briefly looks back to where he believed the town of Weeks to be "and there!" He turns back ahead of him, where hopefully Fairfield would be.

Frank's necessity to stay off the road proved to be a pain in the ass. He lost track of the days spent wandering these woods. Again he was reminded of Susie. She wouldn't have gotten lost. Julie and Joey would be laughing if they were here. Big bad Frank lost in the woods like a lost child. If Frank could be thankful for anything, it would be that they couldn't witness his blunders.

_You idiot. You had one job! Go in a straight line! And you somehow found a way to mess it up! _

It didn't help Frank that his head was throbbing. His stomach did back flips with every step. Frank held his swollen shoulder, poorly bandaged with scraps of clothing. Not the best, but considering the nearest hospital was miles away and the ones that won't ask questions even farther; he was content to keep going like this.

_No. No this won't do at all! Where's a convenient car when you need one? Hell, I'd settle for some poor kid's bike. Knock the little twerp over and ride away!_

A trail of blood snaked down his side and soaking the side of his hoodie. The scarlet serpent trailed down and forked off into tendrils of red down his pants leg. An invisible leech draining him of every last drop.

Frank's legs turned to rubber and he fell face first on the forest floor. The world was spinning. Frank's head felt like it was full of hot air. He was sweating buckets.

"I don't need them…" He muttered to no one. "I don't need any of them…"

Frank wrapped the lie around himself like a child to his blanket. He didn't need any of them. He didn't need them to deal with the guards. He didn't need them to get information from that nurse lady. Frank did all of that himself and was still kicking to show for it!

The stubborn teenager refused to close his eyes. That's what they'd want him to do: lie down and die. They'd want him to be the failure they always saw him as. They'd find his body on the cold dirt and laugh at him.

He could hear them now. Susie would cackle in that banshee voice of hers. Joey would pity him, but he was good at keeping his thoughts to himself like a good little dog. Julie… Julie might be the only one that would weep for him. Not in front of the others, but in those sparse, private moments they use to share. Surely she'd miss him, right? Or if _It_ hasn't taken them away.

Frank laid down in the dirt. His eyes grew heavier with each passing moment. Right then and there, he knew that he failed It. He wasn't worthy. He couldn't even cross the street without fucking it up somehow. He was nothing without his Legion and they were gone.

* * *

Dwight waited for his parents to run out of steam. They talked to him for hours while he said nothing. There was nothing to say. Behind muffled wood they pleaded and they begged until the day grew long and they returned to their mundane routines. Dwight found himself in a familiar setting: alone.

The sun sank behind the trees in a pool of pink and amber lights. The last rays of light reached out for Dwight to fruitlessly hold. He almost thought to wave goodbye to his bright yellow friend. The only reminder that this wasn't some sick dream that he'd wake up from. The only thing keeping him tethered to reality.

"Dwight?" Derek whispered in the dark. "Are you there?" He didn't answer. Dwight couldn't form the words to speak, much less to him. "Can I ask you something? Why are Mom and Dad acting weird?"

Wait? He saw it too? It wasn't just the paranoid remnants he brought back from before? Dwight opened the door just a crack. Derek's small round face on the other side. Somehow Dwight could see that smile even in the dark.

"You've noticed it too?" He asked in a near inaudible whisper. Derek nodded his head.

Dwight opened the door further. No one was watching. No one was listening.

"Get in." He said as he ushered Derek in his room. Dwight returned to his position as a barricade to the bedroom door.

"They've been acting funny."

"I know! You see it too?" Dwight asked.

"Uh-huh. They keep smiling all the time, they're always talking about how nice the day is and Mom won't stop making pancakes for breakfast!"

Dwight's stomach groaned at the mere mention of another grueling stack of pancakes.

"Did they act differently before I… I came back?"

Derek nodded his head.

"They were always sad. They didn't talk as much as they do now. Mom always made me bagged lunch for school and Dad would always drive me to my games. There was always something to do. We played a lot of games."

Dwight remembered taking trips like those. When he was about Derek's age, his father did his damndest to get Dwight into sports; any sport. He tried them all: basketball, football, lacrosse and Dwight didn't last long in any of them. Not for his lack of trying, in fact he gave it his all in every single game. For one reason or another he failed every single one.

"I bet that was fun." Dwight sighed. "I'm sure Dad is really proud of you."

Derek leaned on the bed frame beside Dwight. "He was. He likes to brag to people about my games. I just want to have fun, but he really cares about winning."

Winning. Dwight hasn't heard that word in so long. The very idea was almost foreign to him now. Winning. There was no winning in that place. You either got out or you ended up on a hook.

Dwight cradled his head in his hands. The slightest thought provoking horrible memories he'd sooner forget. The sharp shadow drifting off the window took the form of a razor kitchen knife. The slight whistle of the wind left Dwight expecting to hear a familiar wailing bell. The boy couldn't even escape in silence. His ears attuned to hear a certain lullaby from the faintest of whispers.

Like a soldier back from war, part of him was still there. Trapped entirely in a prison of his own creation. A padded cell stuffed with memories that any sane psychologist would offer all sorts of medicine and therapies to forget.

"Dwight?" Derek asked with soft boiled eyes. "You okay? You're just staring at me? Did I say something bad?"

Derek. The boy was innocent and kind. If only he knew. Dwight opened his mouth as if to say something, but the words never reached his lips. There was an openness about Derek. Something vulnerable and naive on how he shared his thoughts and feelings. He seemed happy enough to do so. This was Dwight's chance to ease the burden. To tell someone, anyone and maybe he'd believe him. A real living being that would believe him.

He felt that supernatural pull from the corner of the room. Like a string pulling at the base of his skull to the corner of the room. The corner where he hid that journal burdened with the worst he'd witnessed and experienced. It would be so easy to dig it out of the wall and just give it to Derek. Have him read it, have him understand it, then maybe… maybe…

Dwight didn't know what would happen. This need to share his pain, he didn't know if it would ease it or make it better. All he knew was that he had to share it. Perhaps in telling someone, simply talking about it would justify Dwight's feelings on the matter. If someone else knew, then he wouldn't be looked at with wide eyes and nervous glances. So he wouldn't be seen as a piece out of place.

But if he did chose to show Derek the journal, if he chose to imitate that openness his step brother is always flaunting; would he believe him?

"Um, Derek, could I ask you something?"

"Yea? What do you need?"

"What did Mom and Dad say why I was gone for so long? What did they tell you?"

Derek's happy demeanor crumbled. His eyes grew wet with tears as they held back the puddles behind them. "They said… they said you got lost in the woods and never came back. How'd you get lost for so long?"

"It's a… a long story…" Dwight said, a little deflated.

"And those scars, did you get those in the woods?"

The woods. It was always in the woods. Every place It created, every twisted sandbox made was always nestled deep in a thick layer of dead trees. Even in the supposed buildings you could catch glimpses of the outside to revealing nothing but an endless plane of forest surrounding you.

Like bars in a jail cell they kept you trapped, caged to Its whim. Run all you want, you can't escape it. There were always something in your way and something close behind ready to drag you back kicking, screaming and bleeding.

"Yes…" Dwight confessed. He kept his gaze straight ahead of him, unable to look down at his own arms. The memories were flooding his brain so fast that Dwight feared he'd drown in them. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Okay." Derek sighed. "Do you think I can sleep here tonight? I got practice tomorrow and I can't sleep well on the couch." The little athlete rubbed his back, arching it back to a loud audible crack.

"Sure, Derek. You can sleep in the bed, I'm just going to stay down here on the floor."

Derek lifted himself up to the bed. The window giving him a full view of the dusk outside. He swaddled himself in the bed sheets, but not before letting his gaze drifted over the hung jersey proudly printed with the Fairfield name.

"Goodnight, bro." Derek said as he drifted off to sleep.

Dwight was taken aback by this. His heart stopped for a brief moment. Bro. The word seemed right. They were brothers after all, regardless of blood relations.

"Goodnight… bro." Dwight smiled as night fell upon them. For some reason it didn't seem that bad this time. The night was calm and the terror was somewhere far away. For the first time in a long while, Dwight felt anchored. He was here.

Frank laid down in the dirt. The forest swirling around him. He felt colder than he ever did on the slopes of Ormond. He was in the eye of a tornado that he couldn't control. Self deprecating words burned into his brain.

_Failure. Loser. Vermin. Pathetic. _

He couldn't escape them. They taunted him in their voices. His Legion taunting him.

_You couldn't even chase down a loser like Fairfield. _

"That voice…" Frank muttered. His voice weak. A small puff of steam puffed off his breath and abandon him only in the night

_I can't believe I ever fell for something as pathetic as you._

"Julie…" The quiet girl in a small town and a tough thug from the outside. Something straight out of a fairy-tale. They were made for each other, right?

_What happened to me was all your fault!_

"No…" Frank moaned. "There was nothing I could do…. How was I supposed to know..?"

The sun was swallowed up by the trees. The open night sky held countless stars all staring down at him. The cool night air wrapped around his already numb, blood soaked fingers. The memory of their first kill that fateful night still fresh in his head.

No. He refused it. He refused to lay down and die. A fire burned at his very core, stoked by a dark fury buried within him.

Frank felt a bolt of lightning shot through him. This energy, this adrenaline he hasn't felt since that one fateful night. He remembered it clearly as if it were yesterday. The store, the cleaner's body laying limb on the floor, the car drive up to the Mount Ormond and the horrible storm. The violent cocktail of fear, rage with a dash of thrill.

He yearned for that feeling again. That storm of emotions; he wanted more than anything in the world. That the sleeping beast will wake up.

Frank pushed himself up. Brittle branches and old leaves crushed under his shoe with a deep crunch. The pain in his shoulder reduced to an inconvenient numbness. Any worries of blood loss or infection were dashed away. He had one goal, one mission. Everything, even his own body was of no consequence.

Something tugged from inside his skull. This invisible pull setting him on the right path. Frank smiled beneath his mask.

_It_ was here, that faceless entity. It had to be. Nothing else could explain this tugging inside Frank's head. He let out a silent cheer. He knew it wouldn't abandon him. It wouldn't leave him for dead. He was worthy.

He marched forth. The world was still spinning. His head felt an odd weightlessness like it was replaced by a balloon without Frank noticing. How long was he out? How much blood did he lose?

Frank heard the distant whoosh of passing cars and honking trucks. He was close to the road. In the veil of night he could get away with getting closer. The teenager's very blood acting as a twisted camouflage. Perfect.

Frank crept closer to the sparse road. He crouched down in the tall grass. Bright cones of light all flying by in one direction: away from Weeks.

Filled with renewed vigor, Frank melted back into the dark woods. He hid behind the trees to be just out of sight from any passing vehicle and started walking. He could see the faint lights of the suburban town in the distance. The town where Fairfield supposedly resided.

Frank's heart pounded in his chest like a war drum. He's chance of proving himself was near. He would show them. He'd show them all! He'd prove himself to It, he'd prove himself to his Legion that Frank didn't need any of them!

Frank's walk broke out into a mad sprint. Brittle, low hanging branches shattered in the wake of his path. He was a shark that smelled blood in the water. Nothing would stop him or stand in his way. He'd make it by dawn.


	7. Chapter 7- The Nightmare Stagnates

Meg felt tired. A constant downpour of drowsiness assaulted her senses. Her body begging her to lay down and rest. She was always tired, something always kept her balanced on the border of tired and exhausted. The pendulum never swaying to one side for too long.

It was the chases. The athlete always found herself running from something. It didn't matter much what that something was, in this place it wasn't hard to tell what wanted you dead at first glance. Always running, always hiding, death around every corner with no rest in sight.

That was thing that bothered her the most. She was always running but never getting anywhere. She'd run from knife wielding maniacs or the jagged claws of deformed monsters that might have been human once upon a time; but she always ended up in the same place. Running to the campfire or hanging from a hook. No matter what happened, how it happened or why, she'd arrive at that lonesome campfire. A place that festers in solitude, no matter how many others you surround yourself with. Even when they're right next to you they feel a million miles away.

Maybe she was just tired of thinking about it. Part of her wanted to let all logic slip away, to embrace the oblivion that surely awaited all trapped in this twisted game: Oblivion. Sweet, sweet oblivion. No more pain, no more disappointment, just drifting away in the gentle dark. The last scraps of hope thrown to the fog.

Meg knew she couldn't let these thoughts fester. She bit her lip until she felt her own blood wash over her tongue. She tasted it, it tasted like iron. She was here, she was alive and she needed to be alive for everyone else. This was a nonnegotiable truth.

No, she wasn't physically tired. Something in her head just stopped clicking. Like her brain decided to stop trying. No matter how hard Meg thought about, she couldn't will this feeling away.

Meg found herself on a suburban street. To her left was a shallow row of decrepit houses that looked like they haven't held host as a home in a hundred years. Cracked wood and loose bricks held together by an all too familiar mystical force. To Meg's right was a flat, equally run down building. The fence ripped open beside a rotting picket fence. The sign above the entrance read: Belham Pre-School. The colors faded and worn down by time.

Old plastic structures of a self assembly fort lay strewn across the grass. The image so reminiscent on toys abandoned in a child's backyard. Who ever played with these was long gone however. Only Meg was here to silently mourn the lost innocence.

Meg just wanted to rest. The athlete's legs throbbed from overuse. It was the same painful burning she experienced in her races when she was really pushing herself to her limits. Here, she was pushing herself in every waking moment.

Her knees felt rubbery. They wanted to give up too. Meg hung her head low and lazily spat on the pavement. What's the point in going on if it's all the same? What's the point if she ends up here again and again in this evil loop of death and despair?

She can't think that. She can't give up. _Wake up. Wake up!_ Meg gave herself a hard smack across her face._ Focus. Stay sharp. You have to try, dammit. If not for yourself, then for your friends._

The dark fog gave way for a bright, white light. The edge of the trees wilted away into a sprinkle of ash. Meg could even smell the slight whiff of burning meat. Meg knew who it was. If the new scenery didn't give it away, it was the nursery rhyme.

"One, two, Freddy's coming for you." She was off like a light, through the parking lot and down into the pre-school. "Three, four, better lock your doors."

Meg turned back to see if the dream demon was after her. Nothing. She didn't know quite what to expect. The creatures in the fog are constantly shifting, constantly changing. Some more than others, but recently the shifts have become more dramatic in some than in others.

She wasn't watching where she was going. Meg didn't realize that the floor opened up ahead and she fell down into the pre-school's depths. She crashed down onto the aged concrete, taking the blunt of the force on her arm. She didn't hear a crack or a snap of any sort and deduced she had no broken bones.

"Always count your blessings." She whispered to herself.

It was warmer down there, or at least it looked like it was warmer. A furnace burned away. The stench of scorched flesh stronger here now than ever. The toxic fumes filled Meg's nostrils. She wanted to throw up, but had to settle for a dry heave.

"Five, Six, grab your crucifix. Seven, Eight, going to stay up late." Meg didn't have time to wait. She had to run. She bolted down the twisted concrete halls. Rusty pipes protruding from the wall. Bent and crooked like the branches on the trees. A jet of hot steam flew out into Meg's eyes. She reeled back in pain. Her eyes burned shut.

The nursery rhyme kept getting louder. "Nine, Ten, never sleep again!"

The wail of the exit gates being powered echoed like thunder. Meg felt the long claws slice into her chest. They were cold, colder than ice. As cold as you'd expect from a demon of death.

The one the invisible children called Freddy laughed as Meg was thrown to the basement floor. A sickly grin spread across its melted face. It rubbed the talons on his glove together. The scraping of metal against metal played a small symphony of suffering.

Then the world shook. A great gong that made the realm ground erupted in bright crimson cracks. The same cracks that sucked her dear friend away.

The dream demon snarled. Its prey was escaping. This simply won't do. It grabbed Meg by her bloody shirt and hoisted her over its surprisingly small shoulders. A hook appeared almost out of thin air. Before she had time to struggle free, Meg was impaled on the rusty meat hook.

It was a familiar pain, but that didn't make it any less severe. Meg let out a scream as she grabbed the hook poking out of her chest. It didn't get easier. It never got easier. If anyone were to tell Meg that pain made you stronger, she'd happily show them the countless scars that riddled her body; the most prominent being the hole in her chest. Each one only made her weaker.

The dream demon smiled and vanished just as quickly as it came. Meg was left alone. The gong continued to ring. The cracks burned brighter like veins of molten magma. With each ring of the gong the ground trembled. Meg knew that time was running out.

She reached back and ran her fingers along the shaft of the hook. She firmly grabbed hold of the cold metal. Her heart skipped a beat as she pulled herself up. The black tendrils crept closer because of the attempt. It was trying to dissuade her.

The gong rang again and dashed all fear Meg had. No doubt that the dream demon was keeping her friends preoccupied. This was her last hope of escape.

Again she grabbed hold of the hook behind her. She pulled up, the rusty hook scraping against her ribs. She grinded her teeth as she fought through the pain. The taste of copper filled her mouth as she flew off the hook and crashed down onto the floor.

Immediately Meg started coughing up blood. She could taste it on her breath, it was like drowning in a desert. She was dry drowning in her down blood. Her lungs filled up like fleshy water balloons.

"Got to…. get out…. Got to ... escape... "

Meg pushed herself up and limped forward to the stairs. Her head light as air, she leaned up against a wall to support herself. She could see the outside teasing her. All she had to do was climb the stairs and freedom would be within reach.

The first step didn't provide much of a challenge, then came the second and the third. By the fourth she had to hold onto the railing to keep herself from falling over, and when she reached the fifth and sixth step her grip failed her and she came tumbling down into the back of the basement.

There was a crack in the wall. A tiny sliver of candle light leaked out. Fading away, Meg crawled closer, clinging to the last strands of focus she could muster. Her blood spilled out onto the warm concrete. It bubbled and sizzled before slowly fading away.

Meg pried away the loose floorboards. The rotten plants loosely stacked on top of each other hid an opening. A small chamber revealed to hold a tattered mattress, littered with crudely drawn crayon doodles. This was a secret shrine of some sort.

Meg went through the drawings. Most of them had pictures of a scary figure with the bright red striped sweater and long pointy claws. It was clear what the children drew themselves as: small, helpless things covering their eyes and hoping the big bad man went away.

But among them was one she recognized. A piece of paper that held a familiar handwriting. She reached out for it. The paper she knew must have been written by her mysterious author of the journal. The tips of her fingers graced the parchment. She was so close that she could taste it.

Whatever was written had to be important. Important enough for the realm itself to dangle it in front of her as a prize. She just had to read it, read the words of Benedict Baker. Words of wisdom that taught her how to survive impossible odds may save her again here.

But that was not to be.

The gong banged one final great echo. A black spider tendril erupted up from the ground and into Meg's stomach. Blood filled her mouth and tainted her breath. Immediately everything below the waist was dead numb.

The tendrils wrapped around her and twisted Meg's body in unnatural shapes. There was a loud snap and crack. Her spine broken like a brittle branch. Just when she thought the worst was over, one last tendril drilled itself into her head and the world went dark.

Before she knew it Meg was back at the forlorn campfire. Jake and Claudette looking mournful at her. They each had a hand cradling their chest. That told Meg that they didn't escape. They had they're brief victory torn from them by the ever shifting fog.

* * *

It wasn't hard for Julie to find a ride from Weeks. She had plenty of practice breaking into cars and making a speedy getaway before anyone ever noticed. She knew the steps by heart.

Ball your fist into your hand and use it to leverage your elbow to smash the glass. Ignore the pain and reach inside to unlock the car. Mind the broken glass. Slip into the driver's seat and cross some wires. Simple, easy. She whittled it down to pure habit, much to the dismay of the residents of Ormond.

They were lucky. Here in Weeks the police were too busy stuffing their fat faces with donuts to notice the band of teenagers walk down the street in suspiciously dirty clothing. The blood dried and now resembled dirt on the Legion's jackets.

Any curious onlooker was shooed away by a mean look. The pathetic patrons scurried away like rats at the first sign of danger. Julie hated the sour taste the air had. It reminded her too much of Ormond, too much of home.

"What about that one?" Joey pointed to the beat up van shoved neatly into the alley of two run down buildings.

"Too gross! Let's grab that one!" Susie jumped for joy when she saw the much nicer looking sedan. The paint was chipped and the window cracked, but it was by far the nicest care around.

Julie shook her head. She grabbed both Susie and Joey as they bickered. Her cold glare and flared nostrils relayed her message.

_This isn't a joyride. Shut up and pay attention._

Julie had in mind they're perfect getaway car. Something that danced the line of nondescript and flashy. Something that has found a nice little niche; a Goldilocks zone between the two. If she had to pick one or the other however, she'd go with discrete. This Fairfield character had eluded Frank and escaped that… that _place_. He had to be clever to pull that off and that made him dangerous.

"What about that one, Jewels?" Joey pointed to the sizable van parked outside the police station draped in the lime glow of the neglected streetlight. No windows, looked clean considering where it was and it wouldn't look too out of place if found on some suburban road. Julie was almost expecting a large man in overalls to step outside to go work on some maintenance of something or other.

_Perfect._

"Joey, you idiot! That's outside the police station! We'll get caught!"

"Shut it Suz! Julie here can hot wire it before anybody even notices. Right Jewels?"

Susie had a point. Pigs might be lazy here, but they shouldn't underestimate them. Even a small town sheriff might be stupid enough to think he's brave. A gun and a badge does wonders for the ego.

"I bet she can start it up in five minutes flat!" Joey proclaimed.

"Well… duh? Of course she can! I was just saying that-"

"What? That you don't believe in Julie?"

"N-no! Of course not! This is Julie we're talking about!" Susie hissed between her braces. She glanced back at Julie, scanning her face for any sign of disapproval. "I… In fact, I bet you twenty that she can do it in three minutes!"

"You're on!"

Julie motioned the two of them to follow her. They crossed the barren street to the van. Julie looked through the side mirror. The surprisingly clean mirror showed an empty driver's seat.

_Coast is clear so far._

She leaned over to the hood. In front of them was the police station. Just as run down as the rest of this rotten town. Julie could taste the sad content in the air. Just like Ormond, nobody had any hopes or dreams of leaving. Everyone sat in a pen of their own sad filth. It made Julie's blood boil just thinking about it.

"Smash and grab, Jewels." Joey whispered.

Julie turned and held two fingers to her eyes.

_ Watch my back._

Joey and Susie nodded in unison. "We'll warn you if anyone sees you."

Julie balled her fists into her hand and smashed the window with her elbow. Quickly she reached inside and unlocked the side door. In the blink of an eye she was already in the driver's seat fiddling with some wires.

A spark leap onto Julie's jacket. The engine sputtered, the exhaust spat out a puff of smoke and the car roared to life.

There was a tap on the glass. Julie turned to see a pig cop showing off his bright shiny badge. "Ma'am, step out of the vehicle!"

_Fat chance._

Officer fatass banged his plump sausage fingers against the unbroken window. His cheeks flaring up like an angry bullfrog. "Get out of the car, now!"

Julie pulled the gear shift into reverse and slammed on the gas. The van's wheel ran over the pig's foot. He hopped up and down, clutching his broken foot.

Julie unlocked the door and Joey and Susie jumped in the back.

"Let's get out of here!" Susie screeched.

Julie slammed her foot on the gas. She steered the van onto the sidewalk just quick enough to give officer lardass a love tap on the way out. Julie let out a mute fit of laughter. It sounded like the dying fish gasping for air, but Julie was too busy watching the donuts loving officer cradle on the sidewalk through her rear view mirror.

Susie let out a loud cackle. "What time was that? What time was that?"

Joey looked at his watch and sighed. "There's no way! My watch is broken!"

"Na-huh! Show me the time, Joey!"

Joey held out his watch in defeat. The hands betrayed that Julie took less than three minutes to steal the car.

"Ha! You never were good with numbers!" Susie held out a greedy hand. "Pay up!"

Joey groaned as he reached into her pocket a smacked a handful of dollar bills in Susie's open palm.

"Ha, ha! Gonna buy me something nice with these!"

_What would you even by?_ Julie thought to herself. _Anything we want, we can just take. Money does us no good._

She drove off into the night towards that little neighborly town. Walls of trees surrounded them. Julie couldn't escape the feeling that _It_ was watching them, even now.

The sun slowly dawned over them. The bright light caused Julie to squint her eyes. Her eyeballs rejecting the very notion of natural light. _Note to self, swipe some sunglasses._

"What can you buy with twenty bucks?" Joey echoed her sentiment.

"That's for me to worry about. Don't strain yourself thinking about it, Joey!"

"Hey! You saying I'm dumb?"

"I"m not saying you're smart, now am I?"

Julie slammed her foot on the van's breaks. Her two goons in the backseat collectively slammed their faces on the seats in front of them, silencing to two insolent children. Julie shot them a threatening glare through the rear view mirror.

_If Frank was here, you'd two would've kept your mouths shut!_

Joey was the first to speak up. "We're sorry, Jewels. Won't happen again." He rubbed the front of his face that just had an intimate moment with the cheap leather seat.

"Kiss ass." Susie hissed between her braces. Joey, respectively didn't respond.

_Good. Now let's get moving._

The road stretched far ahead of them. The morning sun did little to alleviate the creeping drowsiness. Julie pushed on and forced her eyes to stay open in the burning sunlight.

At the end of the horizon sat a pathetic suburban down. A place so boring that Julie couldn't stomach to remember the name. This was the place that held her prey, the one thing preventing Frank and Julie from being reunited. If she killed Fairfield, than all her problems would melt away.

_Ready or not, Fairfield. The Legion is coming for you!_

She kept driving straight down the road. The road towards the small little stagnate town. The road to her prey. The road to Frank. How ironic she found, that the path she walked lead to darkness while the road she drove on was bathed in daylight.

* * *

"You really think it was Benedict's?" Claudette asked. Meg sat beside her, staring into the harsh glow of the campfire.

"I know it was. It had to be. Why else would it have been hidden there?" Meg leaned back on the rotten oak. Her legs still burning and her head still throbbing.

Jake got up and casually threw another branch on the fire. Meg looked down at her hand. Every square inch of skin had some trace of a scar in one way or another. A human pin cushion used and abused countless times until it was unrecognizable. It was those fingers that grazed the page. Meg continued to study them as if the words had lept off the parchment and were found on her skin without her realizing it..

"We don't know that." Jake shook his head. "It could be another trick of the fog."

"We can't be sure it's a trick until we read it for ourselves." Claudette brushed the dirt off the journal and opened it's worn pages. "You sure it was his handwriting?"

She held the book open to Meg. The pages filled with the familiar swirls and dots of the fabled Benedict. Words that they have read countless times, memorized by heart and have sworn to muscle memory. The gang would often spout quotes of the elusive author without even realizing it.

Meg nodded her head. "Positive. I'd notice that writing anywhere. I'm certain it was his."

Jake stoked the fire with another branch. Not that he had to. The fire never dimmed nor blazed, always in a state of burning. Like the entity that held them all here, unwavering.

"So what's the plan? We find it and then what?"

"We.." Meg opened her mouth as if to speak and promptly closed it when the words escaped her. The paper could hold anything, from a means to escape to another mindless rant of depravity and desperation.

Perhaps it was all just nothing. Something to fixate on in a fit of madness. Hope was something of a rarity and the thirst for even a sliver of it was maddening.

It's just the same thing over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Run, slash, bleed, hook. Run, slash, bleed, hook. Run, slash, bleed, hook.

The only difference being what did the slashing and how. Other than that it was all the same. LIke a twisted groundhogs day, they were repeating the same actions over and over and over again. Always another generator, always another loop, always another skill to learn and relearn over and over and over again; until you are caught and thrown into _Its_ clutches.

Still, it was something to cling to. Something to stoke the dwindling fires of hope. It's what Dwight would have wanted. Meg believed he said at one point. Whether this memory was based in reality or another fabrication didn't matter. If he didn't say it, he would have said it if he was still here.

Meg walked over and picked up a small rotten log, no bigger than high school textbook. She turned to the fire and threw the log into the flame. For a moment the flame rose. The hungry pyre crackled with delight at the sudden treat before dying back to the mundanity to held before.

"It's something." Meg echoed her own thoughts. "And that's what matters. Next match at that preschool, I'm going to get that paper and bring it back. Even if it's the last thing I do!"

Jake and Claudette stood up. The fire in their eyes blazing brighter than the campfire.

"We're right behind you, every step of the way!"

The three huddled together. A bond forged through countless adversities. They would persist. They would endure. They last this long by the skin of their own teeth.

"There could be other pages." Meg picked up the journal and ran her fingers through it's pages.

"You might be right." Claudette said. "If we find that page, we'll know for sure."

"The journal stopped getting new pages, maybe Benedict found a way out and left us a trail to follow!" Meg cradled the journal close to her chest. She could feel the hope blossoming in her heart like a sweet summer flower.

"We can only hope." Jake said. "No matter what happens, I won't give up on any of you."

"Same thing goes for me Jake, you too Claudette!"

For so long they survived just to survive. Survived the hunts, the sacrifices and more recently survived the loss of a dear friend and leader. But now they had a mission. A mission they hoped will lead to their salvation: Follow Benedict.

* * *

The fog rolled through the groaning store house. The distant crows squawked in the distance. Their echoes rippling through the mournful trees as they released their leaves to the ground below.

Ground. If you could even call it that. Claudette knew it wasn't ground. Maybe the concept of the ground but not actually the ground. Or maybe it was yet another unfathomable concept that It weaved into her mind.

Claudette stared at the ground. There was dirt, grass, even a tiny ladybug crawling up the dark green blade. But it wasn't real. None of this was real in the traditional sense.

_Just don't think about it. Focus on the objective. Survive._ That familiar voice in her head told her. Claudette shook her head and looked off in the distant fog.

Crumbling brickwork erected from the dirt, long winding trees scraped the sky with crooked fingers and bare branches. Tall thin pillars baring glass fruit that flickered faintly above their mechanical roots.

Claudette crept closer. The silence of the woods was deafening. The only relief was the squawk of distant crows. Was it her friends or the beast that hunts them?

_Focus Claudette._

She saw the generator overgrown with moss and dust. Pressing herself against the brick wall she peeked around the corner. Nothing. No lullaby, no wailing in the wind, no roar of the chainsaw. Nothing but the empty drone of the forest.

She began her mindless work on the dilapidated machine. The pistons slowly pumping to life after crossing just a few wires. It was mundane. There was not surprised by it anymore. Claudette would wager that she'd be able to keep up with the best mechanics in her small town with the experience she gained here. Sadly you can't put down an eldritch spider god down as a reference.

She laughed at her own joke when the generator exploded in light. The dark was pushed back and Claudette found herself under the pale spotlight. She breathed a sigh of relief when two more generators went off in the distance. The beasts were getting sloppy.

Through the trees there was the old warehouse. Broken windows gave a glimpse of its contents, old boxes, pallets and one tempting generator all cradled in the crumbling building of moaning metal. Claudette walked inside like she owned the place. She noted the stairway to the basement to her left, the pallet to her right and the generator just ahead. She knew the window around the corner lead to another pathway to more pallets and a hill she could jump from later. Most killers lose her after a round of two around the loop.

It was funny. She wasn't afraid anymore. She knew these killers. All their tricks, traps, and toys. Each one was a puzzle she knew intimately after however long she's been trapped here. Nothing could scare her anymore.

It was then after such a fevered declaration did Claudette felt a chill creep up her spine. The sudden, unmistakable feeling that she was being watched. The cold crept closer. Her heartbeat pounding in her ears.

Claudette ran to the right to the pallet leaning behind the wall. The heartbeat only grew louder and louder. It was everywhere! It came from all possible directions!

"Where are you?" She screamed and that is when she heard the hissing gasp of air.

A white cloaked figure materialized beside her in a mind boggling blur. The gasp of air followed by the swing of a rusty bone saw ripping through flesh. Claudette feel forward, slamming the pallet down on the ghostly nurse. The nurse wore all white. A bed sheet wrapped tightly around her face. Every breath was heavy and labored as if the mere act of existing was taxing on the fitful creature.

It grabbed the air as the palm of her hand lit up with light. In a swift blink it was front of Claudette and struck her down without a second thought. Next thing she knew, Claudette was being carried away into the depths of the basement and hung like an ornament on the sickly hooks.

The nurse vanished into thin air. The beast back on the hunt. Rage surely surging to make up for the slow start. The invisible warden lashing it's monster's back.

Claudette swung on the rusty hook. The sharp metal digging into the underside of her collar bone. She was already mentally preparing herself for the end, for those horrible tendrils to crawl up the hook and finally put an end to her.

A lonesome draft washed down into the basement and Claudette heard something. A faint sound, but unmistakable. The sound of paper flapping in the breeze.

And there it was, tucked away from sight worming beneath a pile of scrap. Claudette knew it had to be the page that Meg was talking about or at least one of them. The answers to all their problems, the start of the journey to truly escape laid just out of reach.

Without thinking, Claudette pulled herself from the hook. The metal sawing into her flesh. The tendrils creeping and growing faster with anticipation. It was right there. All she had to do was-

A single spider claw swooped down on the young botanists. Claudette reached and grabbed it just short of plunging into her beating heart.

"Claudette!" Jake cried as he sprinted down the stairs, crashing and pushing himself off the crumbling wall towards her. He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her down to the floor. "What were you thinking? We have to go, now!"

Claudette crept towards the pale sheet of paper. Through the floor of blood and rust she plucked the paper from its holdings.

"This is what Meg talked about. The page of the journal."

"There's no time to read it, we have to go!" Jake said as the wail of the exit gate flooded the realm.

Claudette shoved the paper in Jake's hands.

"You take it." She said, staring him down with hard eyes. "I don't trust myself to wait until we escape."

Jake nodded and the two raced up the stairs to the outside. They hoped through the window, sending a blast of broken glass to hide in the grass. The pale moon showed them the way. The exit gate was just down the dirt trail.

Claudette saw a bundle of skulls tucked together on a tripod of bones. A hex totem. It was swallowed up by the trees before she could discover if it was lit or not. The gates were just ahead. Meg holding down the switch. Lights blinked and flickered, the sirens blazing the announcement of sweet escape.

"We're going to make it!" Claudette was almost crying.

The air hissed behind them and in the blink of an eye, Jake was on the ground bleeding. The nurse hovering just above him, claiming her prey.

Nothing Claudette could do. No matter how well she knew these monsters, once in their thrall she was as helpless as the rest of her friends. Helpless as the rest of her fellow victims.

"Take it!" Jake handed the paper to Claudette. "Now run!"

Claudette heard her heartbeat roared in her ear. The nurse slumped over from the fatigue of her powers. Claudette snatched the paper from Jake's hand and ran through the exit gate. She didn't look back even as Jake screamed in pain. The mental image wouldn't leave Claudette's thoughts. The pierce of the hook, the creeping tendrils of that _thing_ and finally the brief cold oblivion.

She sat at the campfire. She never got used to the feeling. That feeling of walking up as if from a dream. The paper was crumpled in her hand.

_It had to be wrong. It could be right. Can it? No, no this wasn't right! It couldn't be!_

"Well? What is it?" Meg tore the paper out from Claudette's hands. Her eyes shrank to two spheres of white.

Jake sat up from his log. A firm hand clutching his chest where the hook had been. He stared at the two girls with horrified eyes. Death still reflecting off the growing tears bubbling up.

"Guys, what's wrong? What's written on there?" Meg held up the paper in disbelief. Jake dropped to his knees. The two great puddles forming behind his eyes finally burst. He turned away to hide the tears running down his olive cheeks. "No… No! It can't be that! Not after all we went through!"

Meg looked at the paper. Her fingers digging into the dirty parchment, her nails tearing the empty paper into tiny snowflakes. Nothing was written, a smile decor around the edge gave the illusion of writings. In a vain of desperation Meg mistook the decor for the long sought after writings. There was nothing. Nothing at all. They were grasping at straws that this realm held aplenty.

"This must what lab rats feel like." Claudette collapsed onto the rotten long behind her, content to just stare into the flames of the empty campfire.


	8. Chapter 8- Welcome to Daylight

Derek didn't know much about the world, despite how many books he's read. He knew how to act, how to behave, how to learn at an acceptable rate to please his teachers and parents both. But the one thing he didn't know was his brother. He didn't understand why Dwight acted the way he did. From what his parents told him, Dwight had a pretty good life. He made the sports team, got along with all his classmates, was top of his grades in school; everything Derek strived to be and more. Yet, when he looks at his big brother he sees something… he seemed different.

He doesn't understand why Dwight was so reserved. He didn't understand why he peeked around every corner of his own house with a crazed look in his eyes. He didn't understand why every night he'd wake up silently screaming ceiling, the cry for help forced down his throat to not make a single peep. Even the way he walked, heel first leading into a slow quiet creep like a child sneaking around in a game of hide and seek. It suggested that he was hiding from something… something Derek didn't quite understand.

Derek couldn't sleep with the thoughts and theories bouncing in his brain. Guilt gripped his heart to see Dwight sleeping on the floor. Despite Derek's best efforts, his brother refuses to sleep on the soft mattress. He peeked over the edge to find Dwight sleeping upright, again. In the dark of the early dawn Derek couldn't determine if his brother's eyes were open or not. He had perched himself up as if on watch for a nameless intruder. If one were to just walk in, they'd think Dwight was sitting waiting for them.

He didn't dare wake him. Derek has seen how Dwight woke. Arms flailing, freshly trimmed nails clawing and thrashing at the air. Mouth agape as if to scream but not a sound is made. Eyes wide open but they couldn't see what was in front of them. Than, after the spastic episode he woudl collaspe down to the floor and pick himself up as if he was sleeping the whole time. It was all so bizzare to witness. Derek didn't dare speak of this to his parents. He didn't dare risk shattering the illusion of a happy family recently made whole. He couldn't do that to them or to Dwight.

Derek stared up at the ceiling, than his eyes drifted to the framed jersey hung on the wall. The young boy smiled and his worries were pushed to the back of his mind. "Everything is fine." He whispered to himself. "We're okay." That was when a strange scent brushed against his nose.

He smelled something. A smell of burning paper graced his nostrils. Derek looked around the bedroom. The sunlight slithering between the blinds in a crimson, amber glow. The smell seemed to come from behind the bed. Derek peeked over the edge, in the dark crevious between the bed and the wall. He couldn't make sense of it. There wasn't any smoke, but the smell proved otherwise. There was a crack in the corner. A small crack, barely noticeable. The smell of burning paper and hot iron whiffed up in invisible smoke. Derek reached over. Black smoke oozed from the festering wound in the wall, beckoning him to come a bit closer. The soft whispering of some inconceivable voice just tempting him to pry it open.

Dwight woke up to the sound of the alarm. His eyes flew open, alert of his surroundings when the calming rays of the sun reminded him he was home. He breathed a sigh of relief and leaned back on the bed frame. His hands cradle his chest to ease his beating heart.

"Another bad dream?" Derek asked from atop the mattress. He looked down at Dwight with genuine concern.

"No, no I'm fine." Dwight stood up from the foot of the bed frame. "I was just… startled is all."

"It's morning. Do you know what time it is?"

Dwight looked down at his little calculator watch. "About seven o'clock, why do you ask?"

"Because I have school today. Today is Monday."

"Monday. Huh. Is it Monday already? I haven't been keeping track." Dwight reached to rub the drowsy from his eyes and his fingers bumped into his glasses. He had slept with his glasses on. "Darn it."

Dwight walked over to the bathroom. Two thumb sized smudges now in front of his vision. Derek followed behind him.

"Do you think you can visit me at recess? I want to show you my friends!"

"Your friends?" Dwight said as he raised his toothbrush "Why? I'm nothing special."

"Because you're my cool brother! And I want to show them how cool you are! Please?"

Dwight looked out the window. A sunny scene of the neighborhood slowly coming to life. The sleeping giant of the suburbs was waking up, children running out their doors and forlicing in their frontyards. Exhausted adults marching to their place of work in cars they can barely afford, but put on a brave face to match those of their smiling offspring. It's all so normal and to Dwight, normal was a treasure.

"I… I think I will, Derek."

"Really?!" The child's eyes lit up like floodlights. "You mean it?"

"Yea, when does school start?"

"Eight o'clock. Recess starts at one o'clock!" The two could already smell the pancakes heating up downstairs. Their stomachs collectively groaned in unison.

"How about we talk about this after breakfast?" Dwight offered.

"Sure thing!" Derek sprinted down the stairs and turned to the kitchen. For the first time in a long while, he was happy to eat pancakes in the morning.

* * *

Jake felt tired. His arms heavy as anvils, his legs even heavier than that. Every step was a test of willpower. Every breath a test to see if he was still alive. He didn't know where he was. He was sure it had a name but he didn't care. Familiar or not it was all the same. The aesthetics melted away, he only saw the paths to run, the pallets to loop whatever monster of the week around if he could.

"I think I hear something?" Meg warned as they toiled away on the generator. The pistons rising up and down from the red, dirty block of metal. Jake only nodded in response. A grim idea floating in his head. _Will I be cut up, chopped to bits, or eaten alive today? _

Sparks erupted in his face. Jake fell down on his back on the cold floor. The monster roared in the distance. By the time Jake got up, Meg was already gone. _Course she is… Don't bother helping me or anything. Don't try to finish the generator and help us all get out alive. God forbid you get hit once!_

Jake bit his tongue and continued to work on his gen. He didn't even feel the need to run. What was the point? He'd either get captured today or tomorrow; not that time has any meaning here. A scream in the distance told him that Meg was caught by the beast. _So much running did ya, huh?_

The scream of his teammate echoed in the halls. He heard a blood curling roar soon after.. Was it man or beast? Jake couldn't find the will to care. He heard the stomping of angry footsteps coming closer and closer. The generator fizzled, the pistons pumping life into the machine. Jake closed his eyes and let the end take him. He no longer wished to play this twisted game.

* * *

Frank clutched his grumbling stomach. He hadn't had a bite to eat since he left Weeks or… was it since _It _dropped him here? He couldn't remember. The gnawing hunger in his stomach scrambled his thoughts.

The unfortunate rabbit was in his sights, nibbling on a tiny berry. Ripe and fat. Did it even see him? Did this pitiful creature even realize who stood before him. Frank's blood boiled. Something so pathetic as this overblown rodent didn't even fear him.

Frank leapt upon the rabbit with a mad fury. He didn't even care what he tore our, he just had to eat something! Anything! The warm gush of blood washed over his hands. Free from the cold, he plunged his hands deeper into the soon to be carcass and pulled out a fat chunk of meat. Frank couldn't wait any longer. He lifted up his mask and bit down on the raw meat. The same blood on his hands flooded his mouth. He could barely taste the meat.

The instinct crawled in his brain like the claws of a spider tip tapping inside his skull. The incomparable whispers blocking out the tearing of flesh, the shattering of bones. Frank wasn't doing this for survival, the Legion was doing this for pleasure.

Something pressed against the back of his skull. Something colder than the forest air. Frank's heart stopped when he heard the click of a hammer in the back of the rifle. He didn't move an inch. The teenager couldn't find the courage to breath.

"Whatcha doing out here son?" The yookal said in a heavy country accent. "You a runaway or somethin?" The hunter's eyes landed on the dirty bullet wound in Frank's shoulder. The blood congealed, but it was dirty and ached like all hell. "Holy shit! Did a hunter do this to ya, kid?" Frank felt the barrel lowered from his head and didn't hesitate. He spun around and plunged his knife into the hunter's neck. A shot rang out through the trees. The last grasp of a dying man was his finger around the trigger. A bullet shot out to nowhere in particular. The man, an old one at that, laid down on the ground squirming as he grasped at the knife in his neck.

"You idiot! You fucking fuck! They'll hear you! You fucked me! I'm screwed!" Frank tore his knife out and made a cutting board out of the man's ribs. All the while the Legion shouted obscenities and cursed every second the hunter chose to remain alive.

"Car. Car. This guy had to have a car. Maybe a truck. Too far away from either town." A truck would do wonders. Frank raided the hunter's pockets. Bullet shells, bits of lint, a wallet -that Frank pocketed out of pure habit- and a set of shiny keys around a chain. "Yes! Yes! Finally something goes my way!"

Frank's head darted left and right. A few broken branches on the brush and the footsteps left in the mud were enough to guide him to his prize. Frank grabbed the rifle and left the hunter cold and alone. With any luck a wolf will pick him apart and scatter him far from the eyes of the law. Frank smiled at the thought. He almost wished he had time to cut the hunter up to speed up the process, but he had more pressing concerns.

The truck was old. Older than Frank by the looks of it. The paint was chipping off. It's alluring red hue lost to the cancerous rust that was devouring it. "It'll do. It'll more than do."

Whether it was paranoia or just instinct didn't matter to Frank much. He was too close to Weeks for his own liking. He ran to the old, weathered truck and jumped into the driver's seat and threw the hunting rifle in the passenger seat. He could only hope that the "brave pigs" at that shithole of a town didn't hear the gunshot or at the very least thought nothing of it, but Frank couldn't afford to take the chance.

The thrust the keys into the ignition and slammed his foot on the gas. Dirt and mud kicked up behind the truck as it drove through the trees. "Can't use the roads. They'd be waiting for me on the road!" He growled in frustration. He had a bumpy road ahead of him. His bloodstained fingers wrapped firmly around the wheel, tight enough to choke him.

* * *

Dwight Fairfield is a coward by his own admission. There was no denying it when he stared down the front door to his house. A simple wooden door, there was one like it on every door on the street. For his entire life he never felt anything but indifference towards it. So why did his look so large and imposing. So impossibly big that he didn't have any hope of even turning the knob, let alone pull it open.

Derek brushed past him and opened the door. The bright morning sun shining down on the simplest lawn. He slung his backpack over his shoulder and took a step outside. He made it seem so easy.

"You coming? You didn't change your mind, did you?" He looked back at Dwight with soft boiled eyes.

"N-no," Dwight whimpered. "I'm just… thinking about it."

"Thinking about it?"

"I… I just don't know if it's safe."

"Dwight, it's safe here. This is our home. We're a small town, nothing much ever happens around here." _That's what I would have said a year ago._ Dwight thought to himself. _Before It dragged me away._

He shuddered at the thought. The inky black tendrils that resemble a spider's claw emerging from the dark fog. Ensnaring him while the moonshine dulled his senses. Before he knew it he was already retreating back into the house. Derek watched him with big wide eyes. Regret with a dash of disappointment covered every inch of the boy's face. He hung his head low and walked forward out into the big bad world.

He doesn't know. Dwight convinced himself. If he knew he wouldn't dare step a foot outside this house. And yet Derek strode out with a confidence that he'd return. There was no killer out for his blood. No monster lurking in the dark that wanted nothing more than to hang his entrails on a hook. He was just so sure of himself. Dwight felt a pain of envy. If only he had that courage, if only he was brave enough to just walk outside.

Dwight's mind wandered back to that dark place, back to the campfire with Meg, Claudette and Jake. They all gazed at him with dark, tired eyes. Faces caked in mud and soot. Hands shaking from the trail before. Yet, despite all of this, they looked to him and kept their heads held high. They looked at him with that same certainty that at the end of the day they'll return to keep on fighting.

Dwight took a step forward and walked into the daylight. Then a thought crossed his mind. A dangerous thought, a thought he refused to truly accept up until now. Maybe the nightmare truly was over?

* * *

The town was… smaller than Susie had envisioned. With all this talk of this lone survivor they were tasked with hunting, she was lead to assume that his home would be reflective of his grand nature, but she would be wrong. Every street, every corner, every house looked the same, cookie cutter home that defined middle america. Boring white fences holding boring green lawns in front of boring square houses, boring, boring, boring, boring.

Julie was slouched over the van's wheel. It wasn't hard to imagine her eyes drooping from exhaustion. The past 48 hours have been eventful for the trio and a respite would be needed. Joey was leaned up against the window. His finger eagerly tapping against his leg for a distraction. Susie didn't pay him any mind and buried her face in her manga. While reading the action packed, black and white images, Joey's head peeked over the pages.

"What are you reading?" He asked in his trademark gruff voice, which Susie was only 50/50 certain that he was forcing it.

"Broseph's wacky venture." She stated before returning to her reading.

"That weeb shit? Why the hell you reading that lame shit?"

"I like it, Joey. Now piss off!" She hissed, glancing at Julie briefly.

"No, I want to know why you insist on reading that geek shit when you could be reading something better!"

"That's bold of you, I didn't know you could read!"

"Bitch!"  
"Asshole!" The two delinquents held their respective blades to each other's necks. Joey's mask was different from the rest of the legion. He chose a more urban look with a mask made of a tattered handkerchief you could find at any cheap drug store. The two circles crudely cute were the window to his soul. Two black orbs violently shaking amidst a void of white. He was an animal craving the hunt, an adrenaline junky waiting for his next fix and didn't care how he got it.

"Try be brace-face! I dare you!" He snarled.

"I'm tired of you always sticking your nose in my business! Why don't you sit back down and shut the-" The van's wheels came to an abrupt halt. Both Joey and Susie were flung head first into the back of the driver and passenger seat respectively. Susie's face crashed into the inside of her mask. The metal wiring and divests scraping her face, adding insult to injury.

An angry hand grabbed her shirt collar and dragged her into the front. Julie threw her into the passenger seat and glared at her. Without words, the message was clear. _Shut up or you're walking._ Susie couldn't object. Joey sat in the back fuming and pouting. Susie heard Joey mumble something at her, but she didn't hear it and saw to let it slide. At least in the presence of Julie.

In a small town like this traditions die hard. Families here are rooted to the spot. It was like that in Ormond and it was like that here. Traditions like that don't fade overnight, even when they should. Susie thought this when the van stopped right outside of a dusty phonebooth. A moment later Julie climbed back inside with a large yellow phone book that put college textbooks to shame.

"Think Fairfield is going to be listed?" Joey asked. Julie didn't waste the energy answering the obvious question. She flipped through the pages, her finger pressed firm down the list. D, E, then finally the F category. Faircotten, Fairdel, Fairfield. Julie slammed her fist on the dense phone book and threw her fist trumpet in the air. Susie peaked over. There it was, Dwight Fairfield. Everything was needed: an address and phone number ripe for the taking.

Joey's hands ran across his blade. He wiped the knife on the sleeve is his jacket, arguable making it more filthy than before. "So what's the plan now, Julie?" He asked in a cool a tone that he could muster, channeling his inner tough guy act he was never born to play.

Julie reached into her pocket and pulled out a quarter and slid it into the ancient machine. After punching the number, she held the phone in Susie's face. _Talk._ She glared.

Susie took the phone and held it up to her ear. The phone rang. The low rumble and then a high pitched dial. The voice wasn't the one she expected. A middle aged woman. "Hello? Who is this?"

"Hello?" Susie asked in the most innocent voice she could play. The helpless girl next door. "Hello, is this Ms. Fairfield?"

"Why yes I am! Who is this? Who are you?" She jumped from zero to one hundred in a flash. She was paranoid. Susie had unknowingly opened a can of twisted stress and jumped to defuse it. "My name is Susie. I'm a friend of Dwight's!"

"Susie? I don't remember a Susie?"

"You don't remember me? I was… I was…" She wracked her brain for an excuse. She looked to the building in front of her. A banner hung overhead advertising a local football game at the local high school. "I was… at the game. Remember the game?"

"The game?"

"Yea, you really don't remember? We were there together. I heard he just got back into town. Is he okay?"

"Oh," the woman sighed with relief. "He's doing fine. We're so happy to have him back with us."  
"Cool, cool. That's good to hear, ." Julie drew her finger across her neck. _Cut to the chase._ "Eh… any chance I could catch up with him?"

"Oh, I think he'll be off to the middle school with Derek. You might bump into him after school."

"The middle school. Right, well thank you so much ." Susie took the pen hanging in the booth and wrote down the name of the school. "When I see Dwight, we'll have a killer time!"

"That's nice dear. You have a good day."

"Oh, I will." She hung up and held up the address to Julie. "We got him!"


End file.
